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ASIA 

A GEOGRAPHY READER 



By Ellsworth Huntington, Assistant 
Professor of Geography in Yale University, 
•with an introduction to the series by Richard 
Ell WOOD Dodge, Professor of Geography, 
Teachers College, Columbia University 



^ 



RAND McNALLY & COMPANY 

Chicago New York 



s>* 



Copyright, 1912, 
By Ellsworth Huntington 



Chicago 



£CI.A31924C 



r 



PREFACE 

The purpose of this volume is to describe some of 
the ways in which the cHmate, topography, and other 
characteristics of Asia have influenced the distribution 
of man over that vast continent, and have caused the 
inhabitants of different regions to acquire highly varied 
habits and customs. To include, however, only those 
aspects of life in which the influence of physical envi- 
ronment is clearly apparent would be to present only 
a part of the story and to omit many interesting and 
important details which children ought to know about 
the people of Asia. Since the volume, in its character 
of a supplement to an ordinary textbook of general 
geography, is intended primarily to give children a 
picture of the life of the inhabitants of Asia, the author 
has deliberately included many details in which the 
causal relation between life and its geographic surround- 
ings cannot easily be shown. The chief emphasis, 
however, has been given to habits and customs which 
show the causal relation, for the purpose of the book 
is to instruct as well as interest. It is hoped that the 
nature of the subject may stimulate many pupils to a 
further and more complete study of certain areas, at 
least, and that the scientific presentation of the matter 
may help them to realize that an understanding of 
certain of the fundamental geographic relationships 
enables one to organize mere scattered items of inter- 
esting information into systematic, usable knowledge. 

The emphasis given to different regions of Asia is 
not always in proportion to the political or commercial 
importance of these regions to the rest of the world; 

(v) 



vi PREFACE 

for the author's purpose has been not merely to describe 
certain areas, but rather to go into details in reference 
to a few regions so as to show clearly the causal relations 
between life and its surroundings which may there be 
illustrated. Each of these areas permits the study of 
certain large geographic principles and is a basis for 
comparison with similar or dissimilar areas in other 
parts of the world. Hence certain regions, such as 
Seistan in eastern Persia, have been described more 
in detail than would be warranted if the point of view 
were simply to show their importance to the world as 
a whole. 

Another guiding principle has been that, other 
things being equal, emphasis should be given to the 
geographic conditions unfamiliar to the children of 
America, for it is unfortunate for pupils to gain the 
impression that all that is unfamiliar is unnatural, or 
merely curious and without meaning. For instance, 
the nomadic life of the Arabs, from this standpoint, 
deserves fuller description than the agricultural life 
of the peasants of Japan. 

Another principle has been to avoid repetition, except 
to enforce a point. Thus Tibet is treated very briefly- 
because similar conditions of nomadism induced by 
high, cold plateaus have been previously discussed in 
reference to the Tian Shan Plateau. In a similar way 
the treatment of Japan and India is fairly brief, because 
many of the principles which can be applied to those 
countries have already been developed in the preceding 
chapters on Chosen (Korea) and Indo-China. 

The most important of all the principles which have 
played a part in determining the manner of the writing 
of this book is the conviction that ideas are the greatest 
of all human products. Therefore, the historic lands 



PREFACE vu 

of the Turkish Empire have been treated quite fully. 
The origin of Christianity and Judaism in Palestine 
and of Mohammedanism in the Turkish portion of. 
Arabia, the rise of culture on the Ionic seaboard, the 
spread of letters from Phoenicia, and the existence of 
the earliest of the world's great kingdoms in Meso- 
potamia are facts of such import that every child ought 
to know the geography of these famous regions. 

It has sometimes been said that geography is the 
handmaid of commerce. This is doubtless true, but 
the statement often creates a false impression. Geog- 
raphy is the handmaid of economics, history, politics, 
and other sciences as well as commerce. In this volume, 
accordingly, no attempt is made to follow the pre- 
vailing tendency and to lay special emphasis upon 
commercial geography. The attempt has been rather 
to proceed from a basis of physical geography and 
climatology and to build a well-balanced whole which 
centers around human activities. It includes some- 
thing from each of the great branches — economic, 
commercial, political, and historical geography — ^but 
specializes in none of them. Doubtless the balance 
is imperfect, for no matter how nicely the scales may 
be adjusted the personal equation adds its weight, 
and the resultant presentation seems ill-balanced to all 
save the author. Fortunately, even though a book 
is not balanced to the entire satisfaction of all the world, 
it may still be useful. If this volume shall interest 
and stimulate the scholars who read it and broaden the 
vision of the teachers who teach it, its mission will 
be accomplished. 

More than half the illustrations of the book are taken 
from the author's own photographs. Most of the others 
were furnished by the Secretaries of the American Board 



viii PREFACE 

of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, in Boston, to 
whom most cordial thanks are due. A few were fur- 
nished by the Oriental Society of America, to whom 
also hearty thanks are tendered. 

Ellsworth HuntingtoNo 
Yale University^ 
New Haven, Connecticut 



I 



INTRODUCTION 

Many attempts have been made in the past to prepare 
supplementary geography readers that would enable 
teachers to increase the emphasis that can be given to 
the picturesque side of geography — that is, to add good 
strong side lights to the necessarily brief and sometimes 
formal presentation of the more comprehensive text- 
books. Such reading matter obviously ought to be 
as accurate, authoritative, and systematic as the mate- 
rial of a textbook, and must be presented in an appealing 
and readable form. Children of the age to get profit 
from such supplementary work are attracted by a 
volume that tells a story in an absorbing and enlight- 
ening way, just as they are by a story full of action. 
In either case, the book that causes the child to curl 
up in a corner and lose himself in his reading is the 
valuable book, provided its contents are sound, inspir- 
ing, and educative in the best sense. Children want 
to have faith in the realness and the value of what 
they read and to be able to relate the newly acquired 
material to the more familiar matter gained in formal 
study. 

The editor and publishers have attempted to meet 
these demands in the series of supplementary volumes 
of which this is the first to appear. Each author who 
is contributing to this series is a geographer of high 
repute, an authority on the country described, whose 
accounts are accepted as standard by the scientific 
world. Each one writes from a fullness of knowledge 
of the facts depicted and with a keen appreciation of 
the way the people in each country reflect the influence 

(ix) 



X * INTRODUCTION 

of the geographic surroundings in their habits and 
customs. The editor has secured the services of the 
several authors, has planned the larger features of 
treatment, and has edited the manuscripts from a 
common viewpoint so as to secure a certain uniformity 
of plan of presentation, but he has in no way sacrificed 
the individuality of the authors' w^ork. 

Thus the series will be a collection of expert treatises, 
written for a special purpose and from a common 
viewpoint. It will not be compilation of the work of 
others or a series of travelers* notes especially prepared 
to amuse. It will be a standard treatment of the world 
by regions, from the modern standpoint that geography 
is a study of the earth in its relation to man and life 
and that the most interesting topics in geography deal 
with the lives of peoples and the reasons for their 
habits, customs, industries, and distribution. 

Richard Elwood Dodge. 
Teachers College, 

Coltimbia University, 
New York City. 



THE CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Preface . v 

The httroduction ix 

A List of the Maps xii 

CHAPTER 

I. The Country and its People i 

II. The Four Great Divisions of Asia ... 25 

III. The Religion of Southwestern Asia ... 38 

IV. Arabia: The Land of Plunderers .... 44 
V. Palestine 53 

VI. Syria and Mesopotamia 67 

VII. Anatolia: The Land of the Sunrise ... 73 

VIII. The Armenian Plateau 84 

IX. The Oil Fields of Caucasia 90 

X. The Waterless Land of Persia .... 97 

XI. Afghanistan: The "Buffer State" .112 

XII. Transcaspia and Russian Turkistan .121 

XIII. Siberia: The Most American Country in Asia 135 

XIV. The Plateaus of Inner Asia 152 

XV. A Sea of Sand and Salt 163 

XVI. Manchuria: The Land of Beans 171 

XVII. Chosen (Korea): The Land of the Morning 

Calm 182 

XVIII. Japan: The Land of the Rising Sun . . .192 

XIX. China: The Oldest of Nations 221 

XX. Peking and the Hwang-ho 235 

XXI. Shantung and the Provinces of the Yangtse- 

KIANG 253 

XXII. Southern China 269 

XXIII. Indo-China AND the Malay Peninsula . 284 

XXIV. India 304 

The Index - . . . xv 



(xi) 



A LIST OF THE MAPS 

PAGE 

Mean annual rainfall facing 8 

Asia between 8 and 9 

Seasonal distribution of rainfall facing 9 

Mean temperature for January facing 26 

Asia (physical) between 26 and 27 

Mean temperature for July facing 27 

Southwestern Asia facing 38 

Religions facing 39 

Syria and Palestine facing 58 

Principal plants facing 59 

Mean annual range of temperature facing 134 

Areas of natural vegetation between 134 and 135 

Northern Asia facing 135 

Eastern Asia facing 1 52 

Density of population facing 1 53 

Races of man facing 308 

Southern Asia facing 309 



(xii) 




Copyright by Underwood & Underwood 

Schoolboys and their teacher near the Irdwadi River, Burma 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

CHAPTER I 

THE COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE 

At a Khan in Asia Minor. As the first pink light of 
morning appeared in the east, the courtyard of the great 
inn at_Eregli in central^sia Minor began to be filled 
with bustle and stir. On one side, under the veranda 
which ran around the entire square on a level with the 
second story, a wagoner in brown trousers, skin-tight 
below and baggy around the hips, was grooming his 
horses. Close beside him a small door was pushed 
open by another wag oner, leading two gray horses whose 
hoofs clattered loudly as they crossed the rough pave- 
ment to the well in the center of the courtyard. A 
third man was greasing the wheels of a rough freight 
wagon and singing in the high falsetto voice which the 
Turks seem to enjoy. The wagon was a springless 
vehicle, shaped like the old immigrant wagons of Amer- 
ica. Its long, round top was made of white canvas 
gayly decorated with strips of red cloth sewed on the 
outside in patterns of flowers and leaves. Soon the 
"khanjee," that is, the keeper of the khan or inn, came 
down the stone stairs from the flagged veranda. Like 
most of his guests, he had been sleeping out of doors 
on the floor, with a thick quilt under him and a thin- 
ner one on top. It had taken him only a minute to 
dress, for he had not really undressed at all. He merely 
straightened the red fez or cap which he had worn all 
night, wound a pale blue handkerchief around it in the 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



form of a turban, put on his outer gown of dark brown 
cotton material reaching below the knees, and bound a 




A Turkish araha or wagon 
yellow girdle around his waist. Then he was ready for 
the first work of the day, which was to collect the 
money due from his guests. 

The khanjee removed a large wooden bar and swung 
open the great doors leading to the street. Eight 
wagons were ready to start. The first was a passenger 
wagon, shaped like the freight wagons but fitted with 
springs and having a shiny black top. The curtains 
on the sides were tightly drawn, and the tones of the 
stifled voices proved that this was because some of the 
passengers were Mohammedan women, whose faces 
must not be seen by strange men. One by one the 
wagoners stopped to pay their bills, and then drove 
away in one direction or another. When the fifth 
wagon came up a quarrel broke out. The khanjee 



THE COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE 3 

wanted eighty cents; the wagoner claimed that the 
straw given him for his horses to eat was poor, and he 
owed only seventy cents. Both men began to shout 
in loud voices and seemed angry enough to murder each 
other. Finally the wagoner threw down his seventy 
cents and whipped his horses in an attempt to drive 
away, but the khanjeewas too quick for him. Running 
to the door, the khanjee slammed it shut and locked it. 
The wagoner swore, but the innkeeper merely went 
off up stairs. The people in the other wagons pro- 
tested, some trying to persuade the innkeeper that he 
had charged too much, and others telling the wagoner 
that he had made a mistake. After about fifteen 
minutes the two men allowed themselves to be per- 
suaded. The wagoner paid five cents more, the khanjee 
opened the door, and the wagons began to drive out 
again. The odd thing about it was that, in spite of their 
swearing and cursing, the two who had quarreled said 
good-by to each other as if they were old friends. 

Within half an hour after sunrise all but two or three 
wagons had departed. Every traveler wants to start 
early in Asia Minor, because in summer the days are 
extremely hot and sunny, while in winter they are too 
short to allow any time to be wasted. Some of the 
wagoners expected to drive steadily day after day for 
two weeks before reaching their destination. In Turkey 
railroads are still scarce, and in many parts of the 
country freight and passengers have to be carried in 
wagons. 

A few hours later, in the middle of the morning, the 
dusty courtyard lay silent and deserted in the scorching 
heat of an unclouded July sun. The only people in 
sight were four men in the shade beneath the veranda. 
They were not sitting or standing, as we would do, but 



4 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

were squatting on their heels in a posture suggesting 
frogs. A hubble-bubble pipe was being passed from 
mouth to mouth, so that each man in turn might draw 
two or three whiffs. It was like a large vase with two 
tubes projecting from it. On the top of one tube was 
a little hollow wherein to bum the tobacco. The other 
tube curved outward and served as a mouthpiece. 
In a hubble-bubble the smoke goes down through the 
water with which the vase is filled, and thus loses some 
of its nicotine poison before it reaches the smoker. 

One of the squatting men took five or six short, quick 
puffs at the pipe, and then walked slowly across the 
courtyard toward a small door. His shoes were like slip- 
pers with the back turned down as one turns the back 
of a rubber in putting it on. As he walked they flapped 
so much that it seemed as if he must lose them. The 
man stopped at the door to fix his girdle of figured 
red cloth, extending from his waist nearly to his arm- 
pits. As he took it off, an American traveler, who was 
watching from the veranda, wondered how any man 
could wind such a piece of cloth around himself so 
smoothly, for it was more than ten feet long. The Turk, 
however, was not troubled. He was dressed in the com- 
mon style of wagoners, and he knew how to put on his 
girdle. He simply fastened one end to the latch of 
the door, stood off far enough to extend the girdle to 
its full length, and then turned round and round. 
He wound himself into the girdle, instead of winding 
it around himself. 

Meanwhile the "odabashi," or "chief of the rooms," 
emerged from the steamy atmosphere of the coffee- 
seller's shop beside the wide street door, and climbed 
the stone stairway to the flagged porch above. On his 
uplifted hand he bore a chiseled brass tray laden with 



THE COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE 5 

dishes. Stopping before a carved wooden door, he 
carefully pushed off his low shoes and left them standing 
neatly side by side, while in stockinged feet he stepped 
upon the rugs of the room. He did not think of knock- 
ing or of taking off his fez. These things are not con- 
sidered necessary irf the remoter parts of Turkey. But 
he would have thought it most rude to wear his shoes in 
the house. 

Within the room a portly man in a long gown of pale 
blue broadcloth sat cross-legged on a divan, or couch, 
covered with rich rugs. The fez on his head was almost 
concealed by an enormous white turban. He held a 
crumpled paper upon which he was busily writing with 
a scratching pen. As the odabashi entered, he stopped 
writing and took from his green girdle a little brass case 
about eight inches long, opened one end, and selected 
one of several pieces of reed stems. This he carefully 
sharpened with a penknife. Then he tested it on his 
finger nail, and finally dipped it into a little inkwell. 
It was a pen of the kind commonly used in Turkey. 
The man wrote busily for two or three minutes, not using 
a table or moving the pen from left to right as we 
do, but holding the paper in his hand and writing in 
graceful strokes from right to left, just opposite to our 
method. He was a mullah, or Turkish priest, and was 
considered very learned because he could write so well. 

While he wrote, the odabashi spread an embroidered 
cloth on the rugs in the middle of the floor, and set 
upon it a round table about three feet in diameter and 
eight inches high. Then he placed upon the table some 
sheets of bread about the thickness and shape of griddle 
cakes, but two or three times as large and somewhat 
stiffer. On these he laid some strong-smelling garlic, 
like green onions with thick stems. Next he set on one 



6 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

side a blue bowl full of curdled sour milk, and on the 
other a plate of white, insipid mulberries, while he 
reserved the middle for a covered pewter dish full of 
''pilaf," which is merely rice cooked with bits of mutton 
in such a way that each grain of rice is distinct and yet 
soft. When all was ready the odabashi took a pewter 
basin in his left hand and a pitcher of the same material 
in his right, and stood before the mullah. The learned 
man stuffed his paper and pen into his girdle, pushed 
back his sleeves, and held out his hands. He did not 
wash his hands in the basin, for to him that would 
not have seemed clean. He merely let the odabashi 
pour the water over his hands so that only clean water 
might touch them and all the dirty water might be 
caught in the basin underneath. The odabashi had 
forgotten to bring a towel, so he offered the mullah the 
end of his girdle, which served quite as well. 

When his hands were dry, the mullah sat down cross- 
legged on the floor, drew over his knees the part of the 
tablecloth that was not under the table, and began 
eating. He had no knife or fork or spoon. The people 
of Turkey have such things, but this man was old- 
fashioned. He had a habit of saying, "Our great prophet, 
Mohammed, ate with his fingers, and that way is good 
enough for me." So he carefully picked up some rice, 
rolled it deftly into a ball, and snapped it into his 
mouth. It was astonishing to see how very neatly he 
did it, without spilling or without soiling more than the 
ends of his fingers. When he wanted to eat the sour 
milk, he merely broke off a piece of the thin bread, 
bent it into a scoop, and used it instead of a spoon. 

A Land Too Dry in Summer. The American traveler 
had been watching the mullah through the open door, 
but now the wagoner called to him that all was ready 



THE COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE 7 

for the day's journey, so he went down and took his 
place in a spring wagon. As he did so an old gray- 











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A village of mud and stone in Asia Minor 
bearded soldier left the group with the hubble-bubble, 
picked up his gun from against the wall, and mounted 
a fine black horse. He had been sent by the government 
to escort the traveler as he drove out into the remote 
parts of the country. 

Leaving the smiling host, the wagon and the horse- 
man passed out through the great door and entered 
the bazaar, or the street where the shops are located. 
There peasants in dirty white drawers were haggling 
for half an hour over a difference of two or three cents 
in the price of tea or soap. Merchants in baggy blue 
trousers sat contentedly in little shops, selling cloth, 
raisins, peas, rice, and strange brown, spicy substances 
with lingering, indescribable odors. Turks, Greeks, 
Armenians, and other races mingled in the crowd, but 
among them all no one seemed in a hurry or to care 
whether he accomplished anything or not. 

At first the wagon rattled over the rough limestone 
pavement of the city, between monotonous rows of 



8 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

houses with mud walls broken by scarcely a window. 
Then the "gardens," as the Turks call them, began, but 
the dust rose from the unpaved roadway in such clouds 
that it was almost impossible to see them. Each side 
of the street was bordered by high mud walls which 
held in the dust. 

As the wagon approached one of the many little doors 
in the walls, the soldier called out, "Let's stop here 
and have some fruit. This is my son's garden." Jump- 
ing from his horse, he pulled out a huge key about six 
inches long and opened the door. The air seemed cool 
and fresh inside, for there was plenty of shade and 
little streams of water ran in ditches beside long 
straight paths bordered with rows of stiff poplars. 

The soldier and his son led the way past an orchard of 
peach, apple, apricot, and plum trees to a pretty arbor 
covered with grape vines. In front of it a square pool 
furnished water, which the host sprinkled on the ground 
so that the evaporation might cool the air. A small boy 
ran off to an open field to search for an early melon. 
He came back with two. One was a yellow muskmelon 
and the other a watermelon with the green rind of the 
common kind, but with yellow flesh and brown seeds. 
The garden was full of vegetables and fruits, and the 
traveler was so pleased that he said if all Turkey were 
like this he should like to live there always. 

When he rose to leave there was a great scurrying 
back of the arbor. The women of the household, with 
white sheets enveloping them from head to foot, had 
been peeking through the leaves to see the strange 
sight of a real foreigner in a hat and European clothes. 
Now they ran away for fear that he might see them, 
which would be 'quite improper, since this was a 
Mohammedan family. 



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of A sia 



THE COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE 9 

Leaving the pleasant garden, the traveler and the 
soldier rode on through other gardens and rich wheat 
fields for a while. After a few miles a great change 
occurred. They were riding away from the mountains 
in which the brooks have their source, and now they 
came to a place where the water of the brooks was all 
used up. Where so much water is used for irrigation 
the streams cannot flow far from their sources. So by 
and by the beds of the brooks are dry, there is no water 
for irrigation, and the land is left to depend entirely on 
rainfall. Unfortunately, no rain falls from May to 
September or October, and all the land becomes parched. 
This is one of the chief reasons why Turkey is so poor. 
For mile after mile the two men rode across a dreary 
plain, so dry and brown that most of it was uninhabited. 

As they crossed the plain the soldier began to grumble 
about his wrongs. "What is the use of this constitu- 
tional government that we have now? I see no good 
in it. They tell us the country is growing better now 
that we have freedom. Perhaps it is for some people, 
but I don't like it at all. Yes, I get my pay a little more 
regularly than I used to, but I don't get any more, and 
besides that, the government wants everybody to know 
how to read and write and I can't see any use in that. 
Why should a young boy only eighteen years old get a 
good place just because he can read and has been to 
school? Such a boy does not know the roads and the 
people the way I do. And I don't see why they don't 
let us get our living in the old way. When I was 
younger we soldiers did not get our pay half the time, 
but when that happened we just went out to the villages 
to collect taxes, and we made the villagers give us more 
than our pay. Now they try to prevent us from doing 
that, and they say it is for the good of the country, but 



lo ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

I say that the old way was best, because then a soldier 
led an interesting life." 

For three hours the traveler and the soldier talked 
about the old days of misgovernment in Turkey and 
the new days with the rulers trying to rule more 
justly, but continually hindered by those who want to 
return to the old ways. Mile by mile the plain grew 
drier and more barren, until the traveler wondered how 
any one could get a living from so poor a land. At last, 
about three o'clock, they came to some fields where 
the villagers were reaping wheat by bending over and 
grasping the stalks with the left hand while the right 
hand wielded the sickle. The weary harvesters kept 
standing up to straighten their backs, because the con- 
tinual bending made them so tired. The village of 
one-story houses with flat roofs and thick mud walls 
lay half a mile away. Close to it, many people were 
busy threshing the grain on patches of bare earth, cir- 
cular in shape and about thirt}^ feet in diameter. These 
threshing floors had been made by picking out all the 
stones, smoothing off the earth, moistening it, and 
beating it hard and flat. Here the farmers spread the 
wheat as it came from the fields in sheaves, and threshed 
it. This was done by driving over it oxen drawing 
sledges of thick wood, like toboggans, with pieces of flint 
stuck into the boards on the lower side. The oxen 
were driven round and round in a little circle by boys 
or girls who sat in the sun on the sledges hour after 
hour. The flints, aided by the feet of the oxen and the 
weight of the sledges, broke up the stalks and husks of 
the wheat and set free the grain. Many poor men had 
no sledges. They simply drove the oxen round and 
round until their hoofs had broken up the straw. 

When the process of threshing is finished the farmers 



THE COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE ii 

wait for a windy day, and then pick up the mingled chaff 
and grain on shovels and throw it into the air. The 
grain, being heavy, falls quickly, but the chaff is blown 
into a heap to leeward. On the great farms of our 
prairies the whole process of reaping, threshing, and 
winnowing is accomplished by a single machine. Thus 
the product of one man's labor in America is as great 
as that of twenty in Asia. The Turks have almost no 
machines, partly because their country is poor and 
partly because the people have never learned how to 
make inventions. 

In the village itself not a soul could be seen. -The 
soldier, however, knew the location of the guest room 
where strangers are regularly entertained, so thither 
the two men went. As it was only three o'clock in the 
afternoon, and as the temperature had risen to a hun- 
dred degrees, they both lay down for the "siesta, ' ' or after- 
noon sleep, which people commonly take soon after noon 
in hot countries. After about half an hour the drowsy 
thoughts of the American were interrupted by a plain- 
tive little voice which seemed to be addressing some 
one who would not answer. "Won't you have some 
coffee?" it kept saying. After it had spoken two or 
three times, the traveler perceived a little boy about . 
four years old, a rosy, begrimed youngster who stood 
timidly in the middle of the room, wondering how he 
dared waken the strangers. His mother had prepared 
coffee of the usual Turkish variety, full of grounds and 
as thick as pea soup. She could not properly bring it 
herself, yet the rules of hospitality made her feel uncom- 
fortable unless it were brought. So she stood outside, 
peeking in, while the little boy talked. He would not 
be satisfied until he had watched the traveler drink one 
of the little cups down to the halfway line where the 



12 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

beverage becomes solid grounds and had heard him 
promise to give the coffee to his companion as soon as he 
awoke. He was learning the pleasant rules of Turkish 
hospitality very young. He was also learning the lesson 
of poverty. For the whole village was in great trouble. 
That year the rain was so scanty that the price of grain 
had increased threefold, and all men feared deep want 
and possibly actual famine. 

A Land Too Wet in Summer. Thousands of miles 
away to the east, on the plains of China near the Pacific 
coast, another traveler at this same time was seeing 




Traveling on a Chinese junk 

very different sights. He had come up a branch of the 
Yangtse-kiang in a steamboat for some miles, and then 
had sailed in a native junk worked by Chinese. Now 
he was in the middle of a vast plain, low and monoto- 
nous. Not a hill was in sight. He would have had to 
travel hundreds of miles to find mountains like those 
which are visible from almost every Turkish village. 
Nor was the land dry and parched. On the contrary, 
it looked as if the whole region were a shallow lake, or 
at least a swamp. The traveler was stopping in a village 
where the houses were made of dried mud, just as 
in Turkey, but in other ways the aspect of the village 
was very different. There were no stones to pave 
the streets, nor was there any dust. That day it did 
not happen to be raining, but clouds were gathering. 



THE COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE 13 

Heavy showers had fallen every day for a week, 
and the narrow crooked streets were mere alleys of 
sticky mud. 

In the street where the shops were located the eye of 
the newcomer was attracted at once by the numerous 
red signs printed in elaborate Chinese letters. Many of 
the men who passed by stopped to read a white poster 
which had just been put up. Evidently in this land 
the art of reading and writing is more common than in 
Turkey. After they had read the poster the men 
gathered in groups and began talking about politics. 
They, too, like the people of Turkey thousands of miles 
away at the other end of the continent, were perplexed 
about the new kind of government which has in recent 
years come to them. When they talked they did not 
raise their voices in angry clamor, like the bargainers 
in the Turkish bazaars, but conversed in low, liquid 
voices whose soft tones often suggested singing. The 
traveler knew a little Chinese, and as he listened he 
said to himself again, as he had often said before : "How 
can anyone learn this language?" Words which are 
apparently spelled with the same letters seem to have 
three or four different meanings, and the only way to 
distinguish them is by the tone in which they are said. 
It is almost as if when we said "fall," meaning autumn, 
we had to sing it to the notes "do, re," while when we 
said "fall," meaning to descend, we had to sing it to the 
tones, "do, si." 

While the traveler was thinking about the language, 
an old man appeared, dressed in a blue gown descending 
almost to his ankles. He wore large spectacles or goggles 
with very thick lenses about an inch and a half in diam- 
eter. On his breast was embroidered a bird in the midst 
of some flowers and leaves, indicating that he held an 



14 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 




O;? a i^^iirribajr-U', a common way of 
traveling in north China 



official position. A gilt button in his cap showed that 
he was an educated man of some rank. Like almost 

everyone else, he 
wore a long queue 
hanging far down 
his back. Seeing 
the stranger, he 
stopped and spoke 
to him. "Does not 
the illustrious 
stranger who hon- 
ors our humble vil- 
lage find the mud 
very bad today? 
God grant that 
no more rain will come. Last year we prayed and 
prayed for rain all through the months of June and July, 
but none came until the middle of August, too late 
to raise any good crops. So now we are poor. Still 
w^e could live if the crops were good this year. They 
started finely. Just look out there and see all those 
splendid fields of rice, there where it looks like a lake 
full of grass." 

As they looked across the green, watery plain they 
saw a man trundling a long wheelbarrow piled with 
goods. He was following one of the many narrow little 
dikes, or ridges of earth, which divide the country into 
thousands of little fields. They are built to retain the 
water for the rice crop, which needs constant irriga- 
tion, although too much moisture kills it. Once the 
man slipped off the dike into the muddy water among 
the bright green rice stalks. He did not get very dirty, 
for he was barefooted and his faded blue trousers were 
rolled to his hips, and he had taken off his outer gown. 



THE COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE 



IS 



"That is my servant," remarked the old man. "Just 
see how fine the rice fields look. I hope no more rain 
will come. Sometimes our river rises so suddenly that 
all the country is flooded. Our village stands a little 
higher than some, so that we are not afraid of being 
drowned, but all those villages over there are so low 
that in big floods they are under water. Ten years ago 
nearly half the people in that farthest village were 
drowned in a sudden flood. It is almost as bad for us, 
though. If the water spreads over the plain it will 
sweep across our rice fields, and perhaps cover them so 
deeply that the plants will all be destroyed. That is 
what we are 
afraid of now. 
If more rain 
comes our 
rice will be 
spoiled, and 
we shall have 
a famine. 
We haven't 
any animals 
to kill and 
eat. Most of 
the villagers 
haven't 
enough food 
to last more 
than a month 
or two. Prac- 
tically none 
of them has 



any money to 
buy food if 




Coolies in a treadmill pumping water 
to irrigate rice fielils 



l6 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

the crops fail. We have had famines before, and 
I fear we shall have another. Let's not talk of this, 
however. Come into my house and see how good a 
son I have." 

When they entered the house, the women did not 
run away as in Turkey, but merely stayed in the 
background. The old Chinese led the way into the 
best room, and pointed proudly with the long claw- 
like nail of his middle finger. He let his nails grow 
long because he wanted to show that he was a literary 
man of the old style, who did not work with his hands 
and therefore could keep his nails long. "Look there," 
he said, "could anything be finer? For years my son has 
worked night and day, so that his mother and I might 
be comfortable. Last New Year's Day he was able to 
buy what he had long planned. He brought us this 
beautiful present. Could anything be finer than those 
two coffins? See how white they are. We have put 
them in the best room, and we show them to everybody. 
Some of our old friends are envious, because they are 
afraid that their children will not give them so fine a 
funeral as our son will give us. They are right, too. 
Our son has always been a true worshiper of his ances- 
tors, and when w^e die we know that he will spend every 
cent possible in having a great funeral, with a long 
procession, and much paper money, and a great feast. 
Don't you think we are fortunate?" 

The traveler remained to dinner Avith the old Chinese 
official. The meal was not at all like that of the Turkish 
mullah. The guest and his host sat on chairs beside 
a table. They did not eat with their fingers, but with 
chopsticks. At least the Chinese used chopsticks most 
deftly, and his guest tried to imitate him. When the 
traveler spilled his food, because he was not skillful in 



THE COUNTRY AxND ITS PEOPLE 17 

Chinese ways, the thoughtful host sent for a long silver 
fork with two tines placed about half an inch apart. 
The meal began with a sweet pastry, most cloying to the 
appetite. Then followed eight or ten courses, all of 
which were sweet and full of fat. For instance, the 
spinach was fried with sugar, and the pork, which had 
been kept till it almost fell to pieces, was roasted in 
such a way that it, too, was very sweet. As each new 
dish was brought on, the host, making a sound which 
suggested grunting to show how pleased he was, took 
a piece in his chopsticks and placed it in the little bowl 
of his guest. He kept doing this so often that the 
traveler could not eat half of what was set before him, 
and a servant had to take away the bowl and empty it. 
He always brought back the same little bowl and not a 
new one, for it would be considered unfortunate to use 
several dishes at one meal. Finally the dinner ended 
with a dish of unsweetened rice, a great relief after all 
the preceding sugary foods. 

The Chinese, with their sweet food, their presents of 
coffins, their reverence for their parents, and their fond- 
ness for waiting, represent one great type among the 
people of Asia. The inhabitants of Turkey, with their 
flopping shoes, their habit of eating with the fingers, 
their falsetto singing, and their fondness for noisy 
bargaining, represent another. The Chinese are continu- 
ally kept in poverty by scanty crops and famines, and 
so too are the Turks. Oddly enough, too much water 
during the summer is the trouble in one case, and too 
little at the same season in the other. Both nations are 
also trying to develop a new kind of government modeled 
on those of Europe and America, and both are greatly 
hampered by the fact that many of the people do not 
want to change. That which has been done in the past 



i8 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

is good enough for them now, they say. In many ways 
the Chinese and the people of Turkey are alike; while 
in other ways, perhaps still more important, they are 
different. 

A Land in the Far North. The countries in the 
northern and southern parts of the continent diifer even 
more than do China and Turke}?", because the conditions 
of life are still more diverse. Once an English explorer 
spent a whole year on the Arctic coast of Asia in the 
great dreary, swampy plains called the tundras. When 
he arrived, in midsummer, he found some grass and 
mosses covering the land, but no sign of any crops. 
Not a tree could be' seen in most places, although 
occasionally in warm, protected spots he found little 
willow trees a few feet high and tiny birches which creep 
along the ground. One day he began to dig a hole, but 
when he got down a little more than a foot he struck 
something that seemed like stone. Looking closer, he 
saw that it was merely frozen earth. 

In this far northern region the ground is everywhere 
frozen to a depth of two or three hundred feet, and only 
the surface foot or two ever melts. The sun, to be sure, 
shines almost continually for many weeks, not going 
below the horizon at all in June and only for a few 
minutes for several weeks before and after that time. 
It is so low in the sky, however, that it gives very little 
heat. Even in the short two months which can be 
called summer the explorer experienced two or three 
cold storms with snow and sleet. 

So long as the weather made it possible, the explorer 
traveled from one native encampment to another. 
The encampments were often fifty miles apart, for the 
tundras cannot support many people. The natives were 
all nomads or wanderers, compelled to wander from 



THE COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE 19 

place to place to find food for themselves or their ani- 
mals. Some were at the mouths of the rivers, catching 
fish and sea birds, while others were trapping hares, 
foxes, and other animals whose fur could be used for 
clothing. The majority, however, were busy taking 
care of reindeer. These animals thrive on the moss and 
grasses of the tundras, although our horses and cows 
would soon die on such poor food. If it were not for the 
reindeer there would probably be no human inhabitants 
in this bleak region. The animals are used not only to 
draw sledges but to furnish milk. Sometimes the flesh 
is eaten, but in general the reindeer are too valuable 
to be killed for food. 

In September the natives began to move a little south- 
ward to find better pasture for their herds. The ex- 
plorer and three or four Buriats remained near the 
coast. Already snow had fallen, and they used it to bank 
up the sides of a low hut made of reindeer skins. On 
the twentieth of September a fierce storm raged and 
the temperature fell to fifteen degrees below zero. That 
was the real beginning of winter, which continued for 
eight long, weary months. Once, indeed, the thermometer 
registered ninety degrees below zero, and a teraperature 
of forty or fifty degrees below zero was common. Men 
and animals became covered with frost from their own 
breath. Birds on the wing sometimes fell to the ground 
frozen to death, and the ice on the ponds cracked again 
and again as it conl^racted from the cold. Fierce bHz- 
zards often raged, and while they lasted man and beast 
remained buried beneath the snow, as the only way to 
keep from freezing. The sky was almost always covered 
with dull clouds. The long night of a month or two, 
when the sun was always below the horizon, was lighted 
only at intervals by the magnificent northern lights. 



20 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



A Land in the Far South. When the explorer returned 
from the Arctic tundras he spent a year in the tropical 




Indian peasants and oxen 

plains of northern India along the Indus River. These 
plains and the tundras are equally flat. They have about 
the same amount of rain, and they lie at the same 
height above the sea. In almost every other respect, 
however, they are different. One of the things that 
most impressed the traveler was that, in spite of a simi- 
lar amount of rain, the Indus Plain seemed very dry, 
while the tundras had been very wet. It was merely 
because the sun in India rides so high in the sky that it 
makes the land very warm and evaporates the rain with 
great rapidity. 

The first day that the traveler went to walk the 
thermometer stood at a hundred degrees in the shade, as 
it had for many days before. When he put his hand on 



THE COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE 21 

the ground it almost burned him. Naturally he did not 
walk far, for fear of sunstroke. The natives had no fear 
of that, however, and were working in their fields and 
gardens quite comfortably. They were slender, dark 
brown people, dressed in thin, scanty garments of cotton, 
not fitting like ours, but wound loosely around the body. 
Their appearance was quite different from that of the 
plump, round-faced inhabitants of the tundras. Fat 
people do not seem to thrive in the tropics, nor lean ones 
in the Par North. When occasional cool, rainy days 
came during the winter , the traveler noticed that, even 
though the temperature fell only to forty-five or fifty 
degrees above zero, the poor Indians shook and shivered 
far more than the tundra people did w^hen it fell equally 
far below zero. 

It seemed as if the people of the Indus Plain ought to 
be much richer, more comfortable, and more cheerful 
than those of the tundras, but that was not the case. 
They appeared to be planting crops all the time, espe- 
cially in winter, and in many places the farmers raised 
four or five crops from the same land each year. Yet 
they were no more comfortable than the tundra people, 
who can raise no crops at all. When the traveler asked 
why the people were not richer and more cheerful, a dark- 
skinned farmer, naked to the waist, replied: "Don't you 
see that more than half the land is not irrigated, so we 
cannot use it ? And some years there is too little water 
for the land that we use, and famines come." Because 
such abundant crops can be raised in good years, the 
people of India have not learned to v/ork very hard, nor 
to provide for the bad years which are sure to come. As 
they are not obliged to wander around in search of food . 
for their animals, they are apt to stay in one region all 
their lives. Therefore they are afraid to visit strange 



22 



AvSIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



places, and are suspicious of strange people from whom 
they might learn new ways. Moreover, the heat makes 
them lazy. So, for generation after generation, they 
live in their little mud villages, wear their thin clothes, 
shiver when a northerner would call the weather 
warm, and fear each year that hard times will come. 
If the people of India were forced to live in the tundras 
most of them would speedily die, and the few who lived 
would be compelled to adopt a wholly new mode of life. 




Inhabitants of the high, cold plateaus of central Asia 

A Land at a Great Altitude. Distance north or south 
of the equator is not the only thing that makes a coun- 
try hot or cold. Height above the sea has the same 
effect. The western part of the great plateau of Tibet 
lies from 13,000 to 15,000 feet above the sea. Here snow 
falls from September to May; frosts occur even in 
summer. No one can procure a living here in the winter , 
but during the summer nomads bring their sheep and 



THE COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE 23 

yaks to pasture on the rich grass. The people live in 
low, black tents which are abominably smoky and 
uncomfortable, because fires are necessary for warmth 
and no way is provided for the smoke to escape. Every- 
one dresses warmly. Men, women, and children wear 
long gowns made either of sheepskins with wool inside 
or of two layers of cloth with cotton between them, like 
a quilt. Such thick winter clothes are necessary all the 
year around except at midday in summer, when the sun 
is high in the sky. 

A Land at a Low Altitude. The valley of the Jordan 
River in Palestine lies at the same distance from the 
equator as does Tibet. Instead of being a cold, high 
plateau it is a deep hollow extending to 1,300 feet below 
sea level in the region of the Dead Sea. Therefore its 
climate is very different from that of Tibet. In the 
Jordan Valley no snow falls even in winter, and the air is 
almost unendurably hot in summer. People do not 
like to travel by day, but wait for the cool of the night. 
The crops are planted in w^inter and reaped in April, 
long before the nomads of Tibet go to their summer 
camps in the high part of the plateau. In a hot place 
like the Jordan Valley it is at first surprising to meet 
Arabs with their heads bundled up in thick cloths like 
shawls, even in midsummer. One soon finds, however, 
that it is very sensible to wrap up one's head, for the 
sun is so hot that it is necessary to protect the head by 
means of a thick covering. All these interesting differ- 
ences between Tibet and Palestine are due to the 
difference in the elevation, and hence in the temper- 
ature, of the two places. 

Customs and Geographic Conditions. The more we 
study Asia the more we see how closely the habits and 
character of the people are connected with the physical 



24 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

conditions which surround them. The people of one 
part of the continent differ from those of another as 
much as EngHshmen differ from Zulus. All alike, how- 
ever, are obliged to do many things in particular ways 
because of the lands which they inhabit. Other dif- 
ferences have sprung up because certain methods were 
adopted in special places and have never spread else- 
where, since communication is difficult. In reading 
about strange customs we must remember that the fact 
that they are strange to us does' not mean they are 
not as good as our own. Some are doubtless worse than 
ours, many are equally good, and some are better. For 
instance, in readiness to learn from others the Japanese 
far surpass us; while in patient economy and industry 
the Chinese are so far our superiors that we have as much 
to learn from them in those respects as they have to 
learn from us in other ways. All these things are a part 
of the geography of Asia, and we cannot understand 
them without a knowledge of the countries which the 
various races inhabit. 



CHAPTER II 

THE FOUR GREAT DIVISIONS OF ASIA 

How Customs Differ. One day a new boy came to a 
school in Maine, in the United States. When the 
teacher asked his name ^nd where he came from and 
what he had studied, the other pupils laughed at his 
replies. He said "half" instead of "half," as they did, 
and sounded his r's very clearly, especially at the ends 
of words like "far." As he wrote his name one of the 
girls looked over his shoulder and said to herself, 
"My! How much rounder his writing is than ours." 
At recess some one began to count out for tag. The new 
boy listened a minute, and then said, "What a funny 
way of counting out; we always do it like this," and 
he recited a wholly different rhyme. The next day he 
taught the others a new kind of tag and a new way of 
playing horse. It was called "Broncho Buster." The 
horses got down on their hands and knees. Then, when 
somebody said, "Ready," the other boys jumped on the 
horses' backs, and the horses tried to "buck" them off 
by jumping up and down and kicking up their legs, or 
throwing up their heads. The other children had never 
seen horses act in that way. The new boy was the only 
one who had ever ridden horseback. That seem.ed 
very funny to him. "Why," he said, "out in Colorado, 
where I lived before I came to stay with Grandma, 
everybody could ride a horse." 

After a month or two the new boy had learned to do 
things as the other children did, and they had learned 
something from him. His ways were not any worse 
than theirs, nor any better. They were merely different, 

25 



26 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

because he had lived all his life on a ranch in Colorado, 
while the others had always lived in a town in Maine. 

The Separation of Nations. Nations are like children. 
If they are separated from one another and live in 
different kinds of places, they learn to do things in differ- 
ent ways. They may be very unlike, as in the case of 
the people of the tundras and of northern India, who live 
far apart and in very different kinds of places. Or they 
may be only a little different, like the English and 
Americans, who have much communication with each 
other and live in almost the same kind of country. 

Nations are separated chiefly by the ocean, by moun- 
tains, and by deserts. In Asia the mountains are so 
high that they have been the great separators. In going 
from India to western China a traveler was about to 
cross a pass 17,000 feet high over the Kuenlun Moun- 
tains. The nomadic Kirghiz he met in the high valleys 
on the southern side of the range said to him, "Your 
horses and mules cannot carry their loads over the pass. 
It is too high and steep. You must use yaks, which are 
used to such places." He took their advice. The yaks 
zigzagged easily up the long steep mountain side, never 
slipping among the loose rocks or becoming frightened, 
and rarely stopping to rest. The horses and mules 
slipped and sometimes fell; and every few minutes 
stopped, panting, to rest. One mule became so tired 
and had such difficulty in breathing the thin air that it 
lay down to die. No urging could make it move. It 
lay there for hours, and finally the man who was left 
with it was obliged to shoot it that it might not die a 
harder death by starvation. At the top of the pass the 
caravan was compelled to wait while steps were cut in 
the ice which covered the crest of the mountain. Even 
with the aid of the steps the crossing was dangerous. 




Loiiyilude Eatstfiotn Greeiiuirh 



Physical 




Copijylciht, 1912, hy Ea,.d M.XuUj ct' Connjuny 



of Asia 



X 



THE FOUR GREAT DIVISIONS OF ASIA 27 

One horse slipped and was killed by a fall of a thousand 
feet. 

Difficulties of this sort keep the people on opposite 
sides of mountains apart, so that they do not have 
much trade with one another and do not learn one 
another's habits. The barrier of the Himalaya and 
Kuenlun ranges is one of the chief reasons why India 
and China are so diffierent. 

On a physical map of iVsia we see in the center a 
region where a great many mountain ranges come 
together in a sort of knot. The knot is called the 
^^mirs, or.the ''roof DLthaworkL'' It is a great plateau 
or barren area of rolling hills and gravelly plains about 
12,000 feet above the sea. Above it snow-covered 
mountains rise to altitudes of from 15,000 to 25,000 
feet. Even in summer the plateau is so cold that no 
one can live there except a few wandering shepherds, 
like those of Tibet. 

The main mountain ranges which join at the Pamirs 
form a gigantic cross or fiat x . Between the very 
unequal arms of this cross there are four spaces which 
form the four chief divisions of Asia. Their names are 
Southwestern Asia, Northern Asia, Eastern Asia, and 
Southern Asia. If we compare the political divisions of 
Asia wath these four natural or physical divisions of 
the continent, it appears that each of the four physi- 
cal divisions contains one or more countries or political 
divisions. The boundaries of the countries are very close 
to the great mountain ranges. 

Long ago one set of people went to one division, and 
one to another. They found different kinds of climate 
and soil and mountains, and they also found different 
kinds of plants and animals. So they learned to live 
in different ways, just as the people of the tundras 



28 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

have learned to live in ways different from those of 
India. If there had been no mountains it would have 
been easier for the people to go from one division to 
another. They would have learned from one another, 
just as the pupils in Maine learned a new game from 
the boy who came from Colorado, Because the moun- 
tains-were hard to cross, the people mixed only a little 
with one another, and each division now has its own 
special character. 

Southwestern Asia. The first of the great divisions 
includes the countries of Arabia, Turkey, Caucasia, 
Persia, Afghanistan, and Baluchistan. It contains many 
mountains and plateaus, and many basins, or plains 
with a rim of mountains about them. The middle of 
each basin is usually occupied by a salt lake or swamp. 
In addition to the plains in the basins of Persia and 
Asia Minor, Southwestern Asia contains the huge 
desert plain of central Arabia and the river plain of 
Mesopotamia. 

The most unfavorable condition in Southwestern Asia 
is the dryness of the country. In general all the rainfall 
or snowfall comes in winter, and no rain falls from May 
to October. Many parts of Arabia and Persia have rain 
only three or four times in the year. In such a region 
there cannot be many large rivers. The four largest are 
the Euphrates, Tigris, Aras, and Kizil-Irmak. They all 
rise in the Armenian Plateau, where the mountains are 
high, so that the rainfall is heavier than elsewhere. 
Many of the rivers shown on maps of Southwestern 
Asia are dry part of the year. 

Southwestern Asia is so dry that the people are forced 
to bring water to the fields by means of irrigating canals 
and ditches. During the rainless summer the scanty 
grass which clothes the ground in spring dries up. The 



THE FOUR GREAT DIVISIONS OF ASIA 



29 



fields of wheat and corn and vegetables would do like- 
wise if the inhabitants did not lead the water of the 




Irrigating ditches in eastern Persia 

rivers and brooks to them. As the traveler rides along 
in summer over a dusty brown plain, such as that near 
Eregli in Asia Minor, he comes upon a ditch full of 
muddy water. A little dam of mud shoveled up out 
of the bottom of the ditch turns the water into a field of 
grain. There it spreads out and soaks into the dry earth, 
until the whole field is turned into mud. The roots 
of the plants suck up the water greedily, and when 
one field has been well soaked the water is turned 
to another. In this way all the farms around a village 
are watered from a single brook, and the crops grow 
as well as if rain had fallen. If the streams should 
run dry, the crops would die and the people would 
suffer from famine. 



30 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

The people of Southwestern Asia are chiefly farmers 
and herdsmen. Many of the herdsmen are nomads who 
live in tents all the year, and travel from place to place 
in the mountains or in the desert, driving their flocks 
about to localities where grass can be found. Most of the 
people are Mohammedans. They believe that Moham- 
med, the founder of their religion, was the greatest of all 
prophets. They are governed by despotic Mohammedan 
rulers; but little by little the people are beginning to 
desire to rule themselves, as we do in America. 

Northern Asia. On the map of Asia it can be seen 
plainly that one arm of the mountains which divide the 
continent into four parts forms a great range running 
westward from the Pamirs to the Caucasus. Another 
arm consists of a series of plateaus extending northeast- 
ward to the Sea of Okhotsk. North of these two arms 
lies Northern Asia — the second great division of the con- 
tinent. The plateaus of the arm running to the Sea of 
Okhotsk are separated by lowlands through which it is 
easy to pass. So the people on the two sides have gone 
back and forth a good deal. This is one of the reasons 
why Russia has had many quarrels with China and Japan. 

Northern Asia consists largely of plains with some 
plateaus and low mountains far to the northeast. It 
contains Siberia and Russian Turkistan. All of it is 
governed by Russia. The various parts of the great 
plains differ from one another chiefly in climate. Trans- 
caspia, the southern portion of the plains, is so dry in 
summer that the whole region is a desert. The only 
exceptions are where streams flow down from the moun- 
tains of Persia and irrigate oases. 

Farther north, in the latitude of Lake Aral, the plains 
are not quite so dry. They are covered with a thin 
growth of grass but there is not water enough for good 



THE FOUR GREAT DIVISIONS OF ASIA 



31 



farms. Naturally most of the people in these steppes, 
as they are called, keep cattle and wander from place to 




Nomadic Kirghiz boys. Note that one hoy holds a hunting 

falcon on his wrist, while the other carries a pole 

with a loop for catching horses 

place, according to the amount of grass. Most of them 
go regularly to certain localities at the same time each 
year, spending the spring in one place, the summer in 
another; and so on year after year. The people of the 
steppes and of the desert are all Mohammedans and 
belong to the Tartar or Turki race. 

North of the dry steppes summer rains become abun- 
dant, and a region is found where farming can easily be 
carried on, although the winters are very cold. The 
comparative abundance of rain causes trees to grow and 
great forests to abound. Beside the Siberian Railway 
white-barked birch cordwood, to be used for the engines, 
is stacked in piles hundreds of yards long. There is 



32 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

very little coal in Siberia, and it is much cheaper to 
burn wood than coal. The inhabitants of this part of 
Northern Asia are Russians who have emigrated from 
Europe, bringing with them the Christian religion. 
They are chiefly farmers who raise a great deal of 
wheat and other grains. 

Still farther north the climate grows colder. Dense 
forests cover the plains, and the country is almost unin- 
habited except by hunters. Northward the forests thin 
out and disappear, and at last the bare, cold tundras 
are found. 

The rivers of Northern Asia are of great size. Two of 
them — the Amu and Syr-daria — flow from near the high 
Pamirs and end in Lake Aral. If rain were more abun- 
dant the rivers would be still larger, and would cause 
Lake Aral to rise until a river flowed out from it to the 
Caspian Sea. The Caspian Sea would also rise and 
increase in size until it, too, overflowed and sent a 
river through southern Russia to the Sea of Azov. 
Wherever a country is very dry, bodies of salt water, 
like Lake Aral and the Caspian Sea, are almost sure to be 
found. Their waters are salty because no rivers flow out 
of them. The rivers which flow into them, like all the 
other rivers of the world, contain a minute amount of 
salt. The quantity is not enough to be noticeable in 
the streams themselves. Every smallest particle of salt, 
however, remains in the lakes, while the water is 
evaporated by the sun. Thus the amount of salt con- 
tinually increases until the waters of some lakes become 
mere brine. 

The other large rivers of Northern Asia are the 
Irtysh, Ob', Yenisei, and Lena. They receive most of 
their water from the plateaus northeast of the Tian Shan 
Mountains. They are of little use for trade because 



THE FOUR GREAT DIVISIONS OF ASIA 33 

they are frozen over so long in winter, especially at 
their mouths, and because they flow to the ice-bound 
Arctic Ocean instead of to an open ocean like the 
Atlantic or the Pacific- Hundreds upon hundreds of 
small lakes lie along their northern courses. 

Eastern Asia. The third division of the continent is by 
far the most important. It is bounded on the north 
by the plateaus which form the southeastern border of 
Northern Asia, and on the south and southwest by the 
Himalayas and the mountains of Burma. It includes 
the countries of China, Manchuria, Chosen (Korea), 
Japan, Siam, and Annam. The western part of this 
division is sharply separated from the eastern part by 
mountains. It consists of the dry plateau of Mongolia, 
the desert basin of Chinese or East Turkistan, and the 
cold barren plateau of Tibet. This whole region may prop- 
erly be called Inner Asia. It is so dry that there are 
few plants and animals, and therefore few inhabitants. 
The remainder of Eastern Asia consists of mountains 
separated by fertile plains. No part is more than one 
thousand miles from the sea. The rainfall is every- 
where large enough to support a variety of plants. A 
part of the country, however, is so cold that crops 
cannot be raised. The rivers are large and can easily 
be navigated. There is an abundance of coal, iron, 
and- other minerals. All these things together make 
this a country which can support a great many people. 

The fertile part of Eastern Asia is the most thickly- 
settled region in the world. An area smaller than that 
of the United States, leaving out Alaska, contains 
nearly five hundred million people. That is, there are 
six or seven people for every one in the United States. 
The total population comprises one-third of all the people 
in the world. The climate and other conditions of 



34 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



Eastern Asia are so much more favorable than those of 
Siberia that where Siberia has one person in a given 

area Eastern Asia has 
one hundred fifty. 

The people of East- 
ern Asia are of the 
Mongolian race. They 
are rather short in 
stature , and they have 
yellowish skins, high 
cheek bones, broad 
faces, and straight 
black hair. Because 
the inhabitants are so 
numerous, the ground 
must be carefully 
cultivated in order to 
furnish food enough 
for all. This is the 
chief cause of the ad- 
mirable industry and economy in which many Asiatic 
people are so much ahead of us. The inhabitants of 
the Far East, as Eastern Asia is called, are divided 
into Chinese and Japanese, together with Koreans 
and other less important races, each of which has 
its own distinctive customs. Most of the inhabitants 
of Eastern Asia are Buddhists, or worshipers of 
Buddha, but there are many variations in the religion 
of different parts of this section. By far the larger 
part of the people are farmers, although there are a 
good many merchants and mechanics. There are very 
few nomads; for such people are found almost wholly 
in places where crops cannot be raised and where only 
a small number of inhabitants can get a living. 




A Chinese governor in his official 
robes of silk 



THE FOUR GREAT DIVISIONS OF ASIA 35 

Southern Asia. The fourth great division of Asia is 
the part which lies south of the lofty Himalaya Moun- 
tains. Southern Asia, as it is called, consists of India 
and Burma, and the Malay Peninsula. Tlie northern 
part of India consists chiefly of plains and the southern 
of plateaus. The remainder of Southern Asia is moun- 
tainous, with small plains scattered here and there. 
The climate is warm everywhere except in the high 
mountains. Most parts of the country have an abun- 
dant rainfall. Unfortunately, the rain sometimes fails 
to come at the proper season, and great famines are 
therefore frequent. Northwestern India is the only 
part where the rainfall is very scanty. Here, how- 
ever, great rivers come down from the high mountains 
and provide abundant water for irrigation. Accord- 
ingly, plants grow in profusion in most parts of the 
country, and the number of people is large. The size 
of Southern Asia is about the same as that of all Europe 
with the exception of Russia, and it has about the same 
population — three hundred millions. Southern Asia and 
Eastern Asia together have as many people as all the 
other divisions of the world. 

In many parts of Southern Asia it is so easy to get a 
living that many of the people have never learned to 
work. In the more torrid regions if a man plants a few 
banana trees or cocoanut palms, he can get a living for 
himself and his family without any work, except to take 
care of the trees and pick the fruit. He does not need 
to make provision for the winter, because there is no 
really cold weather. Elsewhere the farmers plant rice, 
millet, and wheat, but these crops do not demand hard 
work for any length of time. Thus the people have 
not, as a rule, learned to be industrious. There is 
nothing to stir them up, and the hot climate destroys 



36 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



their energy. So they have easily allowed themselves 
to be ruled by the English, although they have seven 




Idols carved in stone at the jamous rock-caves of Elephanta 
Island near Bombay, India 

times as many people as England, Scotland, Wales, 
and Ireland. 

Most of the people of Southern Asia are Hindus, 
who worship hideous idols which are supposed to 
represent cruel, wicked gods. Many kinds of animals, 
such as the cow, monkey, and cobra, are also considered 
holy. The hooded cobra is one of the most dangerous of 
all snakes. In a single year it kills over 20,000 people 
in India. It likes to raise itself in the sun and spread 
out the broad hood on the back of its head. Accord- 
ing to the Hindu story, one of the gods was once 
sleeping by the roadside when the sun began to shine 
on his head. A cobra came- along and saw it. The 
animal was sorr}^ to see the god's sleep spoiled, and 
so spread out its hood, and placed itself so that the 



THE FOUR GREAT DIVISIONS OF ASIA 37 

shadow covered the god's head until he woke up. The 
god was so grateful to the cobra that he blessed it, and 
put on the back of its head the two marks which one sees 
there. Because of this the Hindus think it wicked to 
kill a cobra, although they are terribly afraid of the 
creature. The people are delighted to have a white 
man kill a cobra, yet, because of their intense super- 
stition, they themselves will give a snake food instead 
of killing it. 



CHAPTER III 

THE RELIGION OF SOUTHWESTERN ASIA 

The Hadji's Story. We have seen that the continent 
of Asia is divided by mountains into four chief divisions. 
Each of the four has its own pecuHar races, govern- 
ment, reHgion, and customs, as will be shown more 
fully later. Wherever the mountain barriers are low 
and easy to cross, the habits, or religion, or other 
characteristics of one division have passed over some- 
what into another-; but on the whole the divisions are 
clearly marked. 

In Southwestern Asia most of the people are Moham- 
medans, and all their habits as to eating, marriage, 
education, law, and many other matters are regulated 
by religion. Wherever one goes in Mohammedan 
countries there are men in large white turbans who 
go by the name of "hadji," or "pilgrim." One day in 
Persia a traveler met a crowd of forty or fifty men and 
boys on horses and donkeys going out of a village with 
all manner of good things to eat and drink, as if for a 
picnic. "We're going to bring the hadjis home," they 
said. "We'll meet them three da^^s' journey away, and 
bring them home. When we get them here, we'll make 
a great feast for them. Are they not holy men? Have 
they not made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and to the 
sacred tomb of the prophet Mohammed at Medina in 
Arabia?" 

When the pilgrims finally reached home, all their 
friends invited them to dinner to hear of the wonderful 
things they had seen. To as many as possible the 
hadjis gave presents brought from Mecca. In many 

38 



THE RELIGION OF SOUTHWESTERN ASIA 39 

cases the present was only three or four dates. How- 
ever, the people who had stayed at home thought even 
that a great thing, because it came from the city which 
they consider the most holy in the world. 

One day the traveler heard one of the pilgrims, a 
white-haired old man with a long beard, tell the story 
of his journey. "For twenty years I saved my money 
to go to Mecca," he said. "All my life I had been a 
good Mohammedan, keeping all the commands of the 
prophet. I had washed myself and prayed five times 
a day. I had given presents to all the beggars. During 
the month of fasting I had never eaten nor drunk all 
day from sunrise to sunset , though it was terribly hard 
not to drink during the hot days when I was at work 
in the harvest field. I wanted also to keep the fourth 
commandment by going to Mecca. I knew that if I 
went there I should have a high place in heaven, and all 
my sins would be forgiven. So I saved my money, and 
made my wife work hard in the fields to earn more. 

"At last my friend and I started. For two months 
we traveled, sometimes over mountains and across great 
rivers, and sometimes through desolate wastes of sand 
and gravel where no man lived. Half of the time I 
walked, until my shoes were worn out. Then I hired a 
mule and took turns with another man in riding it. In 
time we came to Damascus in the desert, a noble city 
with clear water flowing through its streets, and trees 
growing all around it. There we joined the great 
pilgrim caravan of 7,000 men. My friend and I hired a 
camel — an ugly beast with huge teeth and a flabby 
hump. Its hair was all gone except a few stray tufts 
hanging here and there on its great leathery sides. For 
another month we traveled southward, sometimes on 
foot and sometimes swaving back and forth on our 



40 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



slow-pacing camel, which made our backs lame. Always 
we traveled by night and stopped by day, for it was the 




An Arab traveler in an oasis, ready to join a caravan for a 
journey in the desert 

hottest season of the year. By day no one could 
travel. The sun made the ground hot as a furnace. 
We spread a few pieces of cloth on sticks and tried to 
lie in their shadow, but it was too hot to sleep. Ever}^- 
where was desert. Sometimes it was a desert of bare 
gravel, sometimes of rough, rocky mountains, and 
sometimes of blowing sand. Not a tree was in sight 
for days. 

"There was almost no water at many of our camps. 
There never was enough to wash with at the time of 
prayer, so we washed in the dry sand, as the prophet 
allows men to do in the desert. Often we camped 
around a dirty pool into which all the animals walked 
when they came to drink. We had to drive them 



THE RELIGION OF SOUTHWESTERN ASIA 41 

away when we wanted to fill our sheepskins with the 
vile-smelling liquid in order to have something to drink 
on the next march. One morning, when we had finished 
a weary walk of twelve hours among rough, naked hills, 
we found that there was no water in the pool beside 
the ruined guardhouse of stone. We went on till nine 
o'clock, then rested through the heat of the day, and 
in the afternoon started on once more, half dead with 
thirst. When we reached the water that evening many 
of the party had been left behind because of exhaustion 
or illness. 

"Finally our camel became lame, and we had to walk 
all the time. One night we went so slowly that the 
main caravan got far ahead of us. Suddenly ten 
Arabs on horses and with spears in their hands came 
galloping down upon us. Before we knew what had 
happened they seized the camel and knocked us down. 
They were feeling in our cloth girdles to get our money 
when some other stragglers came up, and they hurried 
off, taking the camel and its load. We were left with- 
out food or any supplies, and with ten days still to 
travel to reach Medina. We were able to buy some 
food from merchants in the caravan, but the price was 
ten times what it was worth. We could not buy 
anywhere else, for the whole country is desert. 

"At last we came to Medina, where we bathed and 
bought new clothes and said our prayers at the tomb 
of Mohammed. Then we went on once more through 
the desert to Mecca. We shouted with joy when we 
saw the sacred city. We thought it the most lovely 
of all cities and the center of the earth. After washing 
ourselves many times and saying many prayers we went 
to the great square temple in the midst of which is the 
holy black stone sent down from heaven. 



42 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

"Yes, Mecca is terribly hot, and very dirty. There is 
very little water and it is always lukewarm, and one 
has to buy it for a very high price from men who carry 
it around the street in sheepskin bags. The people, too, 
are bad, and cheat one all the time. There are so many 
pilgrims that there is not room for them all. Twenty 
men hire one small room and sleep in it, lying on the 
floor as close as they can be packed. For that they pay 
as much in a month as ^ man can save in a year. The 
walls of the houses are made of mud, and some one 
must alwa5^s stay in the room or else thieves will dig 
through the walls and steal everything. Food costs so 
much that most pilgrims bring with them supplies for 
the entire trip. That is because there is so little rain in 
the country around Mecca. If our friends had not 
helped us after our camel was stolen, our money would 
not have held out. 

"I was so sick that I did not come home with the 
caravan, but took the much easier route by sea through 
the Suez Canal, to Constantinople, and so home. Now 
they have built a railroad from Damascus to Medina, 
and soon it will be finished to Mecca, so that pilgrims 
will go the entire way in the train. Perhaps I shall 
go again. The journey is hard, and Mecca is bad, but 
if I can go and stay there until I die I shall go straight 
to the best place in heaven. . . . God is one God, 
and Mohammed is his prophet." 

As the old pilgrim finished his story the men who 
were listening stroked their beards in memory of 
Mohammed, and one man remarked: "If God is willing, 
we, too, shall some day see holy Mecca. It is time for 
the evening prayer. Don't you hear the mullah calling 
from the tower of the mosque?" 

The crowd arose and went to a fountain near by to 



THE RELIGION OF SOUTHWESTERN ASIA 43 

wash their hands. A few of the men went away to 
the mosque; the others took off their long coats and 




Rums near the Pilgrim Road from Damascus to Mecca 

Spread them in a row on the ground, in a clean place 
beside the road. Then each man stepped out of his low 
shoes, and in his stockinged feet stood on his coat with 
his face turned toward Mecca. Lifting his hands, the 
old hadji began to chant the evening prayer, and the 
others joined in. All in unison, they stretched forward 
their hands, clasped them on their breasts, put them at 
their sides, or raised them to their ears. Now and then 
they knelt down and leaned forward, again and again 
touching their foreheads to the ground toward Mecca. 
They did not care who saw them at their prayers. They 
wanted to be seen, just as they want everyone to know 
if they give a beggar even one cent. As Mohammed of 
Mecca and Medina, their prophet and the founder of 
their religion, did 1,300 years ago, so they do now. 



CHAPTER IV 

ARABIA: THE LAND OF PLUNDERERS 

A Country Sacred to Mohammedans. Although 
Arabia is a vast country, it has few people and almost 
no trade because of its dryness. It would not be 
important if all the Mohammedans of the world did not 
consider it holy. One person out of every seven in the 
world is a Mohammedan, who believes that a pilgrimage 
to Mecca will cause all his sins to be forgiven. 

The Suez Canal. The easiest way to reach Arabia 
is by steamer to Port Said at the northern end of the 
Suez Canal. From Port Said the great canal stretches 
southward like a motionless river between straight, 
earthen embankments, which separate the deep water 
of the canal from the shallow water of a lake. Soon the 
lake ends and the canal runs between hills of bare sand. 
No plants can be seen except a few scraggly little weeds 
and bushes. No crops can be raised, and it seems as if 
no one could live there. Nevertheless, from time to time 
little shanties are seen, belonging mostly to Arabs who 
work on the canal. As the great ships from Europe 
steam slowly onward, little Arab children run along the 
bank and., stretching out their hands to the passengers 
sitting on the shady decks, cry out, "Backsheesh, back- 
sheesh," which means, "A present, a present." 

The Dryness of Arabia. Arabia is one of the driest 
countries in the world. It has not a single stream of 
water large enough to be called a river. In the whole 
distance of i,6oo miles — from Damascus on the north 
through the middle of the Arabian Peninsula to the 
south coast — there is not a single stream more than a 

44 



ARABIA: THE LAND OF PLUNDERERS 45 

few feet wide. In America, if one were to go the same 
distance in a straight hne from New York to Topeka, 




A British warship lying at anchor in Back Bay Harbor at the 

port of Aden, Arabia 

Kans,, he would cross the Hudson, Delaware, Schuyl- 
kill, Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri, and about twenty 
other great rivers, besides many hundred smaller 
streams. Except in the midst of large cities, he would 
never be in a place where he could not see trees or grass. 
In the whole distance there would be only a few places 
where he could go much more than a mile without 
seeing at least one house. In Arabia, on the contrary, 
he might often go one hundred miles without seeing a 
single house, or even a tree. He might actually travel 
two hundred fifty miles, or as far as from Boston to 
New York, without meeting a single person. Indeed, 
in the southern part of the peninsula he would find a 
region as wide as from San Francisco to Salt Lake City 
— six hundred miles — where no one travels at all, 
because in the whole distance there is scarcely a single 
place where drinking water can be found. 



46 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

The Mountains and Oases of Arabia. Not all of 

Arabia is so bad as the regions just described. Most parts 
of the country are dry largely because the winds come 
from other lands without crossing the sea. In some 
places, however, the winds come from the ocean and 
have to rise over mountains. When they rise, the air 
expands, and so becomes cool and gives up its moisture 
in the form of rain. This is especially the case in the 
southwestern and eastern corners of the peninsula. In 
the southwest the sea is bordered by a low, dry, narrow 
plain, back of which steep mountains rise to a height of 
8,000 feet or more. At the top of the mountainous 
ascent one finds a coniparatively level country — a high 
plateau — which slopes gently eastward for hundreds of 
miles until it comes down almost to the sea on the eastern 
side of the peninsula. On the top of the plateau, and on 
the ascent to it, the monsoons — steady summer winds 
from the southwest — give a good rainfall from June 
to September. Therefore, this part of the country has 
many trees and villages, and is called Arabia Felix, or 
Fortunate Arabia. Mecca and Medina lie a little too 
far north to have much rain. Oman, on the east side of 
Arabia, like Arabia Felix on the southwest, has rain. 

The Arabian Nomads. The largest number of people 
in Arabia are farmers living in oases, but the most inter- 
esting are nomads. It is not easy to live the life of a 
nomad in Arabia, but it is impossible to live any other 
life in most parts of the country. 

Let us go with the nomads whose attack upon the pil- 
grims was described in the last chapter. There were 
ten of them, and they had five camels. Two men rode 
on each animal. Four days before they had been sitting 
cross-legged on the ground in a low black tent, drinking 
little cups of strong coffee. They, and many other 



ARABIA: THE LAND OF PLUNDERERS 



47 



Arabs, were encamped beside a spring of brackish, luke- 
warm water at the foot of the steep, mountainous slope 
which forms the western border of the plateau. It was 
terribly hot, so that when a man went out into the sun 
he wanted to put on thick clothes to keep out the heat, 
just as is done in the deep Jordan Valley. The Arabs 
felt the heat more because they had lately come dow^n 
from the cooler plateau. Up there the springs had 
all dried up, so they had been obliged to move down to 




Arabs with tents and camels halting in the desert 

the lowland, where there was not niuch grass but where 
there was a spring which flowed all the time. A few 
miles away there was another, larger spring. As one 
looked toward it he could see the tops of palm trees and 
the gray walls of low, mud houses with flat roofs. The 
trees stood in large pits about ten feet deep. They had 
been planted in that way because the only place where 
the soil is damp is far below the surface. Near the palms 
could be heard a squeaking sound, which was made by 
a rope running over a pulley. At one end of the rope 
was a patient camel, and at the other was a leather bucket 



48 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



hanging over a deep well. A man drove the camel back 

and forth. Hour after hour the animal went to and from 

the well, letting down the bucket and drawing it up 

again to be emptied into a trough. From the trough the 

water ran off to the pits and watered the palms. 

Desert Raids. As the men in the black tent looked 

over toward the palms, one of them said to another: 

**Ah, I wish the dates were ripe. Our bread and our 

dates are all gone. The rains were poor last year, you 

know, and the crops were very small. For six weeks 

now I have not tasted a morsel of solid food. I have 

lived on nothing but milk. How I hate it! I want 

something that I can 

chew. We had enough 

to last us a month 

longer, but a guest 

came to my tent. li 

could not send him' 

away. I must honor 

him, for guests are 

sent by God. So I 

took all the rice and 

dates that we had in 

the tent and cooked 

them. When the 

neighbors passed by 

and saw us eating, it 

would have been a 

sin not to invite them 

in. They ate all our 

food. Since then I 

and my wife and my 

. , . . X children have been 

Arab women carrying water from 

a spring in old kerosene cans hungry." 




ARABIA: THE LAND OF PLUNDERERS 49 

"It is just the same in my tent," said the other. 
"You remember that two years ago all my camels were 
stolen. My friends were good to me and gave me six 
new ones; but one of those died, one I exchanged for 
food for the winter, and four are left. It is so hot now 
that they do not give much milk, so we are hungry in 
my tent. Where can we get something to eat?" 

"We cannot rob the people in the village," said the 
first man. "They are our friends, whom we are bound 
to protect. They cultivate the palm trees, and we 
protect them from robbers, and so we divide the dates 
at harvest time. Come, it is time for the pilgrimage to 
Mecca. Can't we go and steal something from the 
pilgrims?" 

Each swore to the other not to leave him in the 
desert. The other men who were in the tent also swore 
to one another; for the Arab fears treachery, but will 
never forsake the man to whom he has sworn to be 
a "companion." Then they took a skin bag full of 
water and a few dates which one of the other men still 
had left. With these and their two camels they started 
off. For three days they hung around the caravan, 
trying to get a chance to rob some one. They ate all 
their dates. One day they could not get any water at 
all. Finally the Arabs fell upon the poor pilgrim and 
carried off his camel with all its load of food. At first 
they did not dare stop even to eat, but rode all night as 
fast as possible to get away. In the morning they saw 
seven Arabs in the distance, and were much afraid that 
they belonged to an unfriendly tribe who would try to 
rob or kill them. Luckily the others did not see our 
Arabs, who hurried on to get behind a hilL There was 
not a sign of a road or path. The men knew the way 
only by the various mountains and hills. 



so 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



"Over there," said one, "is the place to get a drink. 
There was a muddy pool there four weeks ago." 

When they got to the place the pool was dry. So for 
another day they had to go without water. When they 
got home they were almost exhausted. The next week 

they sat around idle 
all the time and did 
not even take care of 
their camels, leaving 
the work to their 
wives. 

Sometimes the 
hungry Arabs go on 
great raids in large 
companies, taking 
with them theii 
famous horses. In 
many places there is 
not enough green 
fodder or water for a 
delicate animal like 
the horse, so with 
foster mother. The 




Arab boys in Palestine 
each horse goes a camel 



as its 

men milk the camels and give the milk to the horses to 
drink. This is the only way in which it is possible for 
horses to live when the people go on long, hard journeys 
through the waterless desert. The camel is much 
more hardy than the horse and can travel several days 
without water. 

The life of the Arabs is almost the hardest that can be 
imagined. Many of them die from fatigue or hunger 
after their long raids. It seems to us wicked for them 
to rob one another and kill the people of other tribes, 
but perhaps we should think and act as they do if our 



J 



ARABIA: THE LAND OF PLUNDERERS 51 

life were as hard as theirs. Arabia is such a dry, weary 
land that only the people of Fortunate Arabia, dow^n in 
the southwest, and of Oman in the east, have enough 
to live on most of the time. It is not at all strange 
that the Arabs are plunderers, or that every man fears 
that every one whom he meets may rob or kill him. 
Because their land is so dry and barren, the Arabs 
have learned to endure thirst and hunger in a way 
that would be wholly impossible for us. Unfortunately 
when the men have an opportunity to rest they feel 
so tired that they leave all the work to the women, 
and thus get the habit of being very lazy. The life of 
the Arabs is so hard that a great m^any of them have 
gone out from Arabia to other countries. They are 
found in Mesopotamia, Persia, the East Indies, Palestine, 
and all over the northern half of Africa. In many 
cases, when they go to other lands, they become farmers 
or merchants. Since they are thus able to earn a living 
in other ways, they give up their old plundering habits. 



52 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 




Copyright bj Dndcnrood & ' 

The Wilderness of the Scapegoat: A view near the Jordan River 



CHAPTER V 

PALESTINE 

The Arab Inhabitants. When the dry climate of 
Arabia has made the Arabs grow poor and suffer from 
hunger they have gone, as we have seen, to places 
where there is more water and, therefore, more food than 
in the desert. As Palestine is a fairly rich country 
lying near to Arabia, many Arabs have come into it. 
To-day the greater part of its people are Arabs. They 
have not come peaceably. When they were driven out 
of the dry desert, they fought with the people who held 
the better lands, and killed them or drove them out. 
Even now on the eastern border of Palestine the Arabs 
come occasionally from the desert and plunder the people 
in the villages east of the Jordan. Sometimes they take 
away their land and use it themselves; and they would 
do so much oftener if the Turkish government did not 
prevent it. Since many tribes have come to Palestine 
from different parts of the desert, the people of the 
country are now divided into little tribes. Each tribe 
has its own dialect, and each lives in its own special 
region, shut off by barriers from other regions. 

The Plateau. In coming from Arabia to Palestine 
one travels northwestward up a long, gentle slope of 
rolling desert with some hills. At last, upon reaching 
Moab, east of the southern end of the Dead Sea, one finds 
himself on a rather flat, treeless plateau nearly 4,000 feet 
above the sea. Because Moab is high and is not sepa- 
rated from the sea by mountains higher than itself, it 
has a fair amount of rainfall during the winter months. 
Accordingly, the people do not have to be nomads like 

53 



54 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



their neighbors, but can raise crops and live in villages. 
In this high, eastern part of . Palestine, between the 



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5yftan women bringing water from a fountain at Nazareth 

Dead Sea and the desert, the days are warm and pleasant 
in early March, but the nights are cold, and now and 
then there are storms when a little snow falls, just as 
it does at the same season in large parts of America. 
There are no trees, because there is practically no rain 
in summer. The houses are made of mud fashioned into 
bricks dried in the sun and then made into walls about 
two feet thick. Sometimes thieves dig holes in such walls, 
as they do in Mecca. The roofs, also, are made of mud and 
are flat, with just slope enough to shed the water during 
the winter rains. If there were more rain the roofs would 
probably be built with a slope like ours to shed the 
water ; this would be possible, because if there were more 
rain there would be more trees to use for timber. 



PALESTINE 55 

A Village of Moab. The streets of a Moab village 
are like narrow, dirty alleys. Often two women are 
seen sitting on the bare ground and slowly turning a 
large stone, round and flat with a hole in the middle 
of it. Through the hole they keep pouring handfuls of 
wheat, which is caught between the stone which they 
are turning and another stone lying below it. In this 
way the grain is ground into flour. It takes about five 
hours to grind enough flour for a fair-sized family for 
one day. The women have little time for any house- 
keeping except cooking and grinding. When the flour 
is ready, four or five women go together to an oven of 
clay, shaped like a beehive, which stands in the street. 
In this, one woman makes a fire of little weeds and 
twigs, or of cakes of dried dung mixed with straw. She 
cannot get wood or coal. When the oven has become 
very hot the women take flat cakes of dough and clap 
them against the sides of the oven over the hot embers. 
There they stick until the bread is baked, when the 
cakes fall down into the ashes and have to be pulled 
out. The women take turns in furnishing the fuel. 
The one whose turn it is to furnish it has to bake her 
bread last, so that she may be sure to keep thg oven 
hot until all have finished. 

The Ghor. From the top of one of the highest houses 
in the village one gets a wide view. Westward toward 
Palestine a rolling plain extends for a few miles, and then 
the plateau suddenly breaks off into a tremendous valley. 
It is impossible to see the bottom of the valley, but the 
farther side is in plain sight. There another plateau 
appears, nearly as high as the one on which we stand but 
not so large. Villages surrounded by trees can be seen 
easily on a clear day. They are only thirty or forty 
miles away. These villages are in Judea, near Jerusalem 



56 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



and Bethlehem. In the Bible story Ruth, when she left 
her home on the plateau of Moab to go with her mother- 




Rackel's tomb at Bethlehem 

in-law to Bethlehem, called these places a "far country." 
It seemed to her very far, because her country is sepa- 
rated from Judea by the deep valley of the Ghor, as it 
is called, which is not at all easy to cross. Because it is 
so hard to pass from side to side of the Ghor, the people 
of Judea and Moab have had very little to do with one 
another and have often been enemies. 

The rocky path from the plateau down into the Ghor 
winds between great cliffs of limestone. Within twelve 
miles there is a descent of four thousand feet. Mile 
after mile the air grows warmer. In the morning, when 
one starts, it is frosty on the plateau. At noon one 
comes to the smooth plain at the bottom of the Ghor, 
and finds the thermometer reading between eighty and 
ninety. No wonder it is hot, for the bottom of the Ghor 
is more than a thousand feet below the level of the ocean. 



PALESTINE 57 

At the mouth of the narrow valley by which the road 
descends is seen a broad plain, eight or ten miles wide. 
Northward, where it extends seventy miles to the Sea 
of Galilee, it is beautifully green with thick, tall grass. 
Crops of wheat ripen here in April, and on the farther 
side, at the foot of the cliffs of Judea, the palm trees of 
Jericho show how warm the climate must be. 

The Dead Sea. Southward the view is less pleasant. 
Green grass is there replaced by a queer, salty plain, 
slimy in places, and in others rough with humps of 
salt. Thousands of years ago this part of the plain 
was the bed of the Dead Sea, then much larger than 
now. That strange sea, 1,300 feet below the level of 
the Mediterranean, still forms a lake nearly fifty miles 
long. It is so full of salt that no animals can drink the 
water, and no fish can live in it except at the mouths 
of the rivers. When people bathe in the- sea they find 
that the water is so heavy with salt that they cannot 
keep their bodies wholly under. When one walks out 
until the water reaches his armpits the water lifts him 
so that he finds himself wiggling his toes to touch the 
bottom. If the water gets into the eyes or into a cut 
it stings dreadfully; and when it dries on the skin it 
leaves a prickly, disagreeable, oily layer of salt. 

The Dead Sea is fed chiefly by the Jordan River, 
a swift, muddy stream which winds in many curves 
between banks of sand and gravel. It is one of the few 
rivers which have not carved their own valleys. On the 
contrary, it flows in a trough formed by the dropping 
down of a slice of the earth's crust. It rises on the high 
slopes of Mount Hermon, but for most of its course its 
bed lies lower than the ocean. Like all rivers, the Jordan 
contains a little salt, and this has been concentrated in 
the Dead Sea, just as the salt of other rivers has been 



58 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

concentrated in the sea of Aral and scores of lakes in 
the drier parts of Asia. If the lake, that is, the Dead 
Sea, had an outlet, the salt would be carried away. 

Sheep and Shepherds. In crossing the plain of the 
Ghor one often meets shepherds living in little tents or 
in the open air with their sheep. This is especially true 
at the end of winter, when they come down from the 
plateaus. Th'ere it is not yet warm and the grass has' 
not begun to grow, but the plain of the Ghor is covered 
with a thick carpet of verdure. So the shepherds 
migrate twenty or thirty miles, and live in the warm 
Ghor for a month or two. A shepherd once told a 
traveler some stories of his sheep. "We shepherds all 
know every one of our sheep," he said. "If they are 
lost we can recognize them even after several years. 
If a sheep wanders and joins another flock, the owner 
can always get it back if he can describe its marks and 
prove that it is his. The people are very honest about 
this. Once a shepherd lost a mother-sheep. After five 
years he saw it one day in the flock of another man. 
When the owner proved that it was his, the other 
man not only gave it back, but gave back its children 
and grandchildren and their children — sixteen in all." 

"Another time," said the same shepherd, "there was 
very little rain one winter in Judea, and the grass was so 
poor that my sheep began to suffer. I heard that more 
rain had fallen in Moab, so I took my flock and went 
across the Ghor. After many weeks I heard that rain 
had fallen at home. The sheep were fat, and I went very 
slowly, only seven or eight miles a day. At night I had 
to watch them, and I became very tired. After four 
days I camped in the barren country halfway out of the 
Ghor, on the west side. I could not keep awake, and 
while I slept some wolves attacked the flock. When 



i 

I 




Copyright, igi2, by Rand, AIcNally &> Company 

Syria and Palestine 

58 



PALESTINE 59 

I woke up every one of my forty sheep was dead. I 
thought now that I could never get another fiock, and 
must go away to work. But the people in my village 
were very kind. One gave one sheep, one two, and 
another three, and now I have a good flock." 

The Plateau West of the Jordan. The narrow slice of 
the earth's crust which has dropped down to form the 
Ghor is bounded on either side by cliffs and steep moun- 
tain slopes, marking the line of breakage between the 
low Jordan Valley and the plateaus on either side. At 
the top of the slope on the west lies the western plateau. 
This forms the central part of Palestine and includes 
Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. Its highest part is an open, 
rolling country, but on the edges it has been much cut 
into by small rivers so that it is extremely rough. 
Naturally the chief towns and roads are on the highest 
part, where it is smoothest. That is the best place to 
live, not only because it is the smoothest but because 
it is high enough to cause the air coming from the Medi- 
terranean Sea to rise and become cool, and deposit its 
water as rain. 

A Village of Judea — Olives and Figs. Most of the peo- 
ple of the western plateau are farmers. They all live in 
villages with the houses close together, and go out to 
their fields every day. Around each village there are 
large orchards of gray -leaved olive trees. Some of them 
are huge old trees that have lived several centuries and 
are all gnarled and twisted. The olive is one of the most 
important crops in Palestine, for it is one of the few 
things for which the people can get ready money with 
which to pay their taxes to the Turkish government. In 
many places everybody is afraid that his neighbors will 
steal his olives, so no one is allowed to begin gathering 
his crop before a certain day appointed by the village 



6o 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



officers. If olives are found in any riian's house before 
that day he is thought to have stolen them. Large 




An old olive orchard in Palestine 

cloths are spread under the trees, and then the men 
and boys climb up and beat the branches with sticks 
to get off the fruit. If the olives are to be pickled 
in the form that we know them, it is best to pick them 
green, but for olive oil they have to be ripe. The old way 
of getting out the oil was to crush the olives between 
two great millstones. The upper stone was turned by a 
horse or a donkey, or even a man. Now presses, some- 
thing like cider mills, are used. 

Figs are another great crop. When fresh they are con- 
sidered most luscious by those who have learned to like 
them — far better than the dried kind. Some villages 
have as many as thirty varieties. Each tree bears two 
crops, one of which ripens two or three months before 



PALESTINE 



6i 



the other. Every one likes the early, sweet ones. 
Oddly enough, there is a custom which allows the 
passer-by to pick the early figs from any trees that 
he happens to see. 

Grapes and Barter. The fellahin, as the villagers are 
called, have vineyards where fine grapes are raised. 
They surround them with mud walls, and on the tops 
of the walls put thorny bushes to keep people from 
climbing over and stealing the fruit. Animals, as well as 
men, like grapes. If the tops of the walls are not too 
thorny, dogs, foxes, jackals, and even bears and wolves 
sometimes climb over to have a feast. In most parts of 
America grapes are more or less a luxury ; but in Pales- 
tine rich and poor eat 
them for months. 
They are so cheap 
that when the people 
go to market they 
often exchange three 
pounds of grapes for 
one pound of wheat. 
With us it is just the 
other way — a pound 
of grapes is worth at 
least three pounds of 
wheat, and often 
more. 

Mgny of the people 

of Palestine do not 

reckon values in 

money, but in wheat. 

Except in the cities 

and along the routes a c ■ ^ . -.7 » • t ^ . 
^ . A bynan peasant with hts basket 

where tourists travel of grapes 




62 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

money is so scarce that trade is carried on by barter or 
exchange. A merchant sells a knife for two bushels of 
wheat, and a farmer buys a sheep for thirty. The fella- 
hin are as simple in other ways as in their barter. For 
instance, a man lent some money and took a note for it. 
Instead of saying that the money would be paid on 
such a day of such a month, the note said it would be 
paid when the cucumbers were ripe again. The people 
do not remember the day of the month, but everyone 
knows when the different crops begin to ripen. 

The Maritime Plain and the Seacoast. West of the 
central plateau of Palestine the country slopes gradually 
down to the sea. The seacoast is bordered by a fertile 
strip called the Maritime Plain. This is the best part of 
the country for raising grain. It is warm because it 
is low, and it is near enough to the sea to have a fair 
amount of rain. Where irrigation is possible lemons 
and oranges are most profitable crops, especially around 
Jaffa. 

Jaffa is the chief seaport of Palestine. It is not a 
good harbor, for it has no protection from the waves, 
and in bad weather no ships can land. In good weather 
large steamers come to anchor a long distance from 
shore, and people are carried to the land in little boats. 
Once some Americans came from Egypt in winter and 
wanted to land at Jaffa. It was so stormy that the 
travelers could not take a little boat to go ashore, so 
they went on with the steamer to Beirut, in Syria, and 
came back again. Once more it was too stormy for 
them to land, and they had to go on to Egypt and 
return a third time. It was almost as stormy as before, 
but this time they were bound to reach land. They 
hired a little boat for themselves and another for their 
baggage. Their own boat landed safely, although every 



i 

I 



PALESTINE 



63 



one was drenched in the breakers ; but the other boat 
was tipped over, and almost all of the baggage was lost. 




View of the Temple inclosure and Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem 

Lines of Communication. With such poor harbors it 
is natural that Palestine should never have had much 
trade by sea. The roads in the interior are not good, 
either. A railroad has been built from Jaffa to Jeru- 
salem, and another from Haifa to the south end of the 
Sea of Galilee, and so to Damascus. There it connects 
with the line, already mentioned, which runs east of 
Palestine through Moab to Medina and the holy places 
of Arabia. In ancient times the chief road in Palestine 
led from Damascus past the Sea of Galilee, across the 
northern end of Samaria where the western plateau is 
very low, and so down the Maritime Plain southward to 
Egypt. This road did not touch Jerusalem because it 
is not easy to reach that city. Thus, when the armies 
of the Syrians and Assyrians came against Egypt they 



64 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

usually did not go to Jerusalem. This is one reason 
why Jerusalem continued so long to be the capital of 
Judea after Samaria was destroyed. 

Cisterns. One of the greatest difficulties in Palestine, 
as in all of Southwestern Asia, is the lack of water in 
summer. If a man is going to build a house, he often 
goes to work first to build a cistern. This is partly in 
order to have some water on hand while the house is 
being built. It takes a great deal of water to mix up 
the mud of which the walls and roof are made. A large 
part of the villagers have no water at all in summer, 
except what they are able to store in cisterns. These 
cisterns are built of a sort of lime plaster and have dome- 
shaped roofs with a round hole at the top. Toward the 
end of the summer the water usually gets very low, and 
often that which remains in the bottom of the cistern 
becomes bad. Sometimes people go out at night and 
steal water from one another. Accordingly, at this 
season, many people sleep out of doors on top of their 
cisterns. 

The Coming of the Rain. Everyone watches most 
eagerly for the first sign of a storm. The man who sees 
a little cloud in the west proclaims the good news 
that the rain is coming. If it does not come at the right 
time the crops suffer and the poor go hungry. In the 
fall clouds begin to gather on the western horizon, espe- 
cially at sunset. Distant lightning plays across the sky, 
and an occasional slight shower falls at night. After 
a few days the clouds gather more thickly, the roll 
of thunder is heard, and at last torrents of rain pour 
down. The people have made all their preparations. 
They have mended the earthen roofs of the houses and 
rolled fresh clay into the cracks. The cisterns have 
been cleared out, and all the channels leading to them 



PALESTINE 



65 



have been repaired. Everything is ready, too, for the 
planting of crops. Plows have been put in order, and 




A street in Jerusalem 

the oxen are ready to draw them. The soil has been 
hoed up around the fruit trees, and the walls of the 
mud houses have been supported with fagots so that 
the rain may not wash them away on the exposed side. 
As soon as the earth is well moistened the farmers 
go out and sow the grain. Many sow the seed first 
and then plow it under. Some plow both before and 
after the seed has been sown. If the rain is very late 
and the seed cannot be sown by the last of October 
or during November, great loss is suffered, because the 
crops sprout so late that they cannot mature sufficiently 
before the "latter" rains come to an end in April. 

. The Holy City of Jerusalem. Although Palestine is a 
very small region it is the most interesting of all countries 



66 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

from a religious point of view. It is the "Holy Land" 
of Jews and Christians ; and even to the Mohammedans 
it is the most holy place after Mecca. Jerusalem, the 
chief city, has only sixty or seventy thousand people — 
less than Duluth, Minnesota — but it is great because of 
its history. Thousands of pilgrims from various parts of 
eastern Europe, and of tourists from western Europe and 
America, visit it every year. The city is surrounded by 
large monasteries and church buildings belonging 
chiefly to the Roman Catholic and Greek churches. At 
most of the sites of great events in Biblical history 
churches and shrines have been built by Christians of 
every kind. Unfortunately, the various sects of Chris- 
tians do not always agree. Therefore the Mohammedan 
Turks, who rule the land, station soldiers to guard the 
holy places. Besides the many kinds of Christians and 
Mohammedans, there are in Jerusalem numerous Jews 
who are restoring some of the ancient Jewish sites and 
are planting colonies. The natives of Palestine are 
partly Christians of the so-called Greek church, and 
partly Mohammedans. All, however, live in much the 
same way except in the cities. 



CHAPTER VI 

SYRIA AND MESOPOTAMIA 

Lebanon. Nearly three thousand years ago, when 
King Solomon wanted timber for his great temple in 
Jerusalem, he could not find the right kind in Palestine. 
He had to send away to the north to Hiram, King of 
Tyre, and get cedars from Lebanon. The distance from 
Jerusalem to Lebanon is not great — only one hundred 
sixty miles, or as far as from Omaha to Kansas City — 
but the climate of the two places is quite different. 
Lebanon is a high mountain range standing close to the 
sea and reaching a height of more than nine thousand 
feet, or twenty-five hundred feet more than Mount 
Mitchell, the highest point of the Appalachians. Natu- 
rally the west winds coming from the Mediterranean 
rise suddenly and become greatly cooled, so that they 
give up much rain. Therefore the climate is more moist 
than that of Palestine. Hence the kingdom of Hiram 
contained many fine trees, and even now the moun- 
tains of Lebanon have more trees than the country 
round about, and the region at their western base is 
rich, because of its climate. 

The Harbors of Syria and the Phoenicians. On the 
map one can see that as they continue northward 
the plateaus of Palestine grow higher, forming the two 
mountain ranges of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon. The 
Ghor also continues as a valley in which flow two rivers 
— the Litani toward the south and the Orontes toward 
the north. Where the Litani turns westward it cuts 
across the range of Lebanon in a wonderful canyon. In 
one place the canyon is so narrow that the river actually 

67 



68 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

flows for a short distance underground, beneath a great 
arch of limestone — a huge bridge made by Nature. 




A Circassian oxcart in Syria 

The coastal plain of Palestine dies out north of Mount 
Carmel, and the shore line is not so smooth as farther 
south. Ages ago the country north of Carmel was 
lowered a little, while that to the south was raised. 
Hence the northern shore became somewhat irregular, 
and possesses some fairly good harbors. In the old 
days the Phoenicians used these harbors, and by reason 
of them became a great commercial people. They were 
the first nation to use letters resembling those of our 
alphabet. They traveled far to the west from their 
good harbors and taught their way of writing to the 
Greeks and Romans, who in turn were our teachers. 
So to-day, in the letters which we use, we preserve a 
reminder of the fact that the well-watered region of 
Phoenicia or Syria, on the slopes of the Lebanon Moun- 
tains, had harbors fitted for the trade of ancient times. 



SYRIA AND MESOPOTAMIA 69 

Damascus, the Queen City of the Desert. As Syria 
has much rain, it naturally has many people, compared 
with the surrounding regions. On each side of the 
mountains there is a great city: Beirut, the center of 
ocean trade on the west, and Damascus, the center 
of desert traffic on the east. The xArabs call Damascus 
one of the four gardens of Eden. They say that there 
is no city like it in beauty, and no city which has 
such clear and delicious water. To them it is an earthly 
paradise, because, although it lies on the very edge of the 
desert, it is wholly surrounded by trees. The city itself 
is not beautiful. Its streets, narrow and dirty, wind 
in and out among high mud walls of houses with no 
windows except small grated holes. The people are 
often ragged, though some are dressed in gorgeous 
turbans and long, gay gowns. Sometimes a rich man, 
in a voluminous white turban and a long blue gown, 
is seen riding on a large white donkey, his waving feet 
close to the ground. Everyone uses donkeys or camels. 
White donkeys, which are larger than others, are con- 
sidered the most dignified of animals. Young men ride 
horses, but older men ride white donkeys and pay very 
high prices for them. In modern days, however, the 
donkey has lost some of his work, for electric street 
cars have been introduced into Damascus. They are 
run by power furnished by the ancient Abana (Barada) 
River. Their speed amazes the numerous street dogs, 
who have not yet learned that the tracks are not a 
good place for a nap. 

Although Damascus itself is not a particularly attrac- 
tive city, it is very beautiful when seen from a distance. 
Bare, naked hills of limestone rise on the west, while 
toward the east lies the great parched desert where the 
Arabs wander. Near the city miles and miles of most 



70 ASIA?, A GEOGRAPHY READER 

beautiful orchards abound in all sorts of luscious fruit, 
such as apricots, figs, and grapes. It is not strange that 
the contrast between these fair, well-watered gardens 
and the desert makes the Arabs speak extravagantly of 
Damascus. The fame and greatness of Damascus depend 
upon a fact not often noticed. The streams which 
water the city come through the mountains of Anti- 
Lebanon from the west side, where there is much rain. 
If the streams from the west side of the mountains did 
not cut across to the dry east side in deep gorges, there 
would be no great city of Damascus, because there would 
be no water. 

The Syrian Desert and Mesopotamia. From Damascus 
caravans go northeastward through the Syrian Desert 
to Palmyra (Tadmor) , a five or six days' journey. There 
they see the ruins of one of the most famous cities of his- 
tory. The beautiful Arab queen, Zenobia, lived in this 
city until the Romans took her to Rome as a captive, 
about three hundred years after Christ. Now the only 
inhabitants are a few poor Arabs who live in mud houses, 
most of which are huddled together inside the walls of 
what was once the magnificent Temple of the Sun. 
Beyond Palmyra the caravans hasten eastward in great 
fear of Arab plunderers. At last they come to the 
Euphrates River, and to Mesopotamia. There, too, they 
find enormous ruins of magnificent cities, around which 
are pitched the black tents of poor, plundering Arabs. 

At Nineveh, on the northeast side of Mesopotamia, 
archasologists have dug from the ground the ruins of 
some of the greatest buildings in the world. Huge pro- 
cessions of gigantic animals and men, carved in stone, 
lead to ruined palaces and temples, where thousands of 
people once passed to and fro. In other places enormous 
mounds have been dug open, and inside of them have 






SYRIA AND MESOPOTAMIA 



71 



been found large libraries and a great variety ot articles 
which show us how the ancient people lived. The 
libraries did not consist of books like ours, but of bricks 
of clay dried in the sun. On the sides of the sun-dried 
bricks letters were stamped in the same way that we 
sometimes stamp figures on cookies. Such bricks, or 



'.■f*" - J«»>»-*«>«*'.-!W» ** » *^>t. 




Ruins of a colonnaded street in Pahnyra 

tablets, do not seem like very good records, but they 
last long in a dry country, and some of them are four or 
five thousand years old. 

Once Mesopotamia was the center of the strongest 
nations in the world. Now, as a whole, it is nothing 
but an enormous plain with no inhabitants except a 
few Arabs and Kurds scattered here and there. It has 
a few cities such as Bagdad, famous for its gardens. In 
some places, such as Koeit, near the mouth of the 
Euphrates and Tigris rivers, the water of the rivers is 
turned on to the plain, and millions of palm trees are 
irrigated. It is said that when the rivers are in flood 



72 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

the water often covers the plain for many miles. The 
people take refuge on the small mounds where they have 
built their houses. While the flood lasts they look 
abroad over a great lake, above whose surface the 
feathery tops of palm trees rise like small islands. 

In spring the desert section of Mesopotamia is cov- 
ered with millions of the brightest wild flowers, making 
great patches of red, blue, or yellow. A few places are 
green with fields of wheat planted by the Arabs. Oddly 
enough, sheep are often seen eating the wheat. The 
Arabs say that if the sheep are allowed to eat off the tops 
of the young wheat, each root will send up two or three 
shoots instead of only one, and they will get more grain 
than if the animals are kept out. As soon as the spring 
rains are past, Mesopotamia dries up. For miles and 
miles everything is brown and bare. There is not a sign 
of people anywhere, except close to the river — nothing 
but blowing sand and dust. 

Mesopotamia might support many million people, 
but misgovernment and the raids of plundering Arabs 
have prevented the inhabitants from increasing and 
prospering. Always the Arabs are fighting with one 
another, or with the Turks and Kurds. The rivers 
keep changing their courses and forming unhealthful 
swamps. Little by little the country has been growing 
worse, but a change is at hand. English engineers 
have made surveys for the Turkish government, the 
rivers will again be made to irrigate the land, and the 
ancient prosperity will some day be restored. 



I 



CHAPTER VII 

ANATOLIA: THE LAND OF THE SUNRISE 

The Greek Fringe of Asia Minor. Anatolia is the 
Greek word for "sunrise" and also the word for "east." 
More than three thousand years ago, before the days 
of Homer, the Greeks began to row or sail from island 
to island in the ^gean Sea. They had very small 
boats and did not dare go far from land, for fear they 
would be caught on the open sea at night or in a storm. 
Nevertheless, because there are so many islands in the 
^gean Sea, they were able to travel far, until at length 
they came to the mainland of Asia Minor on the 
east. Naturally, they called the country Anatolia, or 
"Eastland." The name has come down to us and is now 
used for the peninsula of Asia Minor, the western part of 
Turkey-in-Asia. 

The Greeks never went far inland in Anatolia, for the 
mountains rise steeply close to the shore, and the people 
among the mountains and on the plateau at the top 
were not friendly. It was easy to go along the shore, 
especially on the west. There the coast is cut to pieces, 
for it is pierced by hundreds of deep bays which are ' 
separated and protected by peninsulas and islands. On 
the map it looks almost as if the western part of the coun- 
try had been fringed like a towel. On the north and 
south coasts the Greeks did not find it quite so safe to 
travel as on the west, because there the harbors are poor. 
Nevertheless, after a time, they learned to make larger 
boats, like the one in which Jason and his companions 
went in search of the Golden Fleece. Then they went 
sailing along all the coasts of Asia Minor and founded 

73 



74 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

many prosperous colonies. That was more than two 
thousand years ago; but even now the borders of 




Turkish children carrying grain from the fields in Anatolia 

Anatolia are inhabited largely by Greeks, while the 
interior of the country is occupied by Turks, Armenians, 
and other races. 

The Surface Features of Anatolia. Anatolia is a 
plateau with mountains around the edge and a basin in 
the center. Long ages ago it was lifted from beneath 
the sea, and parts of it stood even higher than they do 
now. Most of the larger streams flowed toward the west. 
They cut deep valleys, between which great ridges of 
the plateau jutted westward like fingers from a hand. 
In those days, long before the coming of man, the ridges 
extended far toward Greece. Then the western part 
of the country sank and much of it was "drowned" 
beneath the sea. The water entered the valleys and 
made them into gulfs and bays, while the ridges stood 



ANATOLIA: THE LAND OF THE SUNRISE 75 

out as islands or peninsulas. Thus the coast became 
highly irregular and very favorable for navigation, even 
for a people like the Greeks, who did not yet know much 
about the sea. 

On the north and south of Anatolia mountain ranges 
run parallel to the sea; therefore there are no good har- 
bors. A few years ago some travelers wanted to land at 
Samsun on the north coast. They started from Constan- 
tinople in a large steamer and sailed up the Bosporus. 
For twenty miles they seemed to be sailing on a broad 
river, although the water was salty. Ages ago, before 
the country last sank, the Bosporus was a river flowing 
out from the Black Sea, which was then a vast lake. 
Now the valley has been drowned. From the mouth 
of the Bosporus the steamer sailed eastward in a 
storm. At Samsun great waves were pounding on the 
beach, and it seemed impossible to land. The steamer 
had to anchor half a mile from the shore, but before her 
anchors were out a crowd of little rowboats came bob- 
bing over the waves and surrounded the ship. The oars- 
men shouted and yelled at the top of their voices. The 
passengers climbed carefully down a ladder and were 
helped into rowboats. Near the shore it looked as if the 
boats would be swamped in the surf. To the travelers' 
surprise the rowers jumped out into the water up to their 
armpits and steadied the boats. Then they motioned 
to the passengers to sit on their shoulders, put their 
hands around their foreheads, and thus be carried ashore 
through the breakers. The baggage was landed in the 
same way ; but the heavy cargo had to wait several days 
until the storm was over. As most of the harbors on the 
north and south coasts of Anatolia are equally bad, it is 
not strange that the great lines of trade have always been 
from the western coast up the valleys to the plateau. In 



76 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

modern times railroads have been built along the same 
lines. Their chief difficulty is to find an easy way down 
from the plateau on the south side in] order to reach 
Mesopotamia and Syria. 

Smyrna, on the west coast of Anatolia, has become 
one of the important cities of the world because the 
drowning of the mouth of a valley has given it a good 
harbor, and because the valley gives an easy way of 
getting up to the plateau, which forms the main portion 
of the country. The city has some disadvantages, 
however. The rivers from the plateau bring down a' 
great deal of mud and deposit it in the harbor. In the 
days of Greece and Rome, Ephesus, which lies south of 
Smyrna, was on the seashore; but now the harbor has 
been so completely filled by the mud from the river 
that the ruins of the old city are six miles from the 
water. Such filled-in bogs now form smooth plains of 
fertile soil. These narrow plains are very rich and are 
highly cultivated. On them are raised the famous 
Smyrna figs, oranges, and other subtropical fruits. 

On the north and south coasts of Anatolia the streams 
deposit mud and silt just as on the west; but, instead of 
filling up drowned valleys and forming long, narrow 
plains running back far into the mountains, they form 
triangular deltas projecting out into the water. 

The Anatolian Plateau. In order to reach the central 
plateau of Anatolia it is necessary to climb the steep 
mountain slopes on the north or the south side or else to 
go up the long western valleys. Naturally the easiest 
route is up the western valleys, and therefore the rail- 
roads follow them. As one goes inland from Smyrna 
the plain grows narrower and at last gives place to a 
narrow gorge up which the railroad climbs. The 
country grows drier, too, and the valley sides become 



I 

i 



ANATOLIA: THE LAND OF THE SUNRISE 77 

naked and rocky. Except during the dry summer 
season, there is plenty of rain along the coasts of 
Anatolia. Winds from the Mediterranean and Black 
seas blow over the land, and when they strike the 
steeply-rising shores and are obliged to rise they give up 
their moisture in abundance When they cross the rim of 
the mountains which surround the plateau , and descend 
a little to the plateau itself, they no longer contain 
much water. Accordingly the interior of Anatolia is 
dry. As might be expected, a basin-shaped part of the 
plateau is occupied by a large salt lake, called Tuz Gol. 

As one approaches the top of the plateau, a change 
takes place in the landscape. The valley walls cease 
to be steep and inaccessible. They recede from the 
streams, the whole country opens out, and soon the 
railroad train is running across the broad, rolling 
uplands of the main plateau. Various other things have 
changed also. Down on the coast there are trees and 
many green places. Here one looks abroad for miles 
and sees scarcely a single tree. Except in spring 
or near the villages, there is nothing green in sight. 
Down on the coast the villages consist of groups of 
houses scattered among fruit trees. The roofs are 
made of red tiles and have a slope to shed the rain. 
Often they are covered with storks' nests. Some- 
times as many as ten storks build their large nests of 
sticks on a single roof, and one may see half a dozen 
of the great white birds standing solemnly on a house- 
top, each with one long leg drawn up out of sight. 

The Villages of Anatolia. Up on the plateau the 
villages are far from beautiful. They consist of groups 
of flat -roofed mud houses huddled together as closely 
as possible. The walls of adjoining houses touch each 
other, and one can walk all around the village by 



78 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



stepping from roof to roof. The chief reason for the 
fiat roofs is that the period of summer drouth is too 




A typical town in Asia Minor 

long to permit the growth of many trees. Hence wood 
is too expensive to use in building sloping roofs. More- 
over, there is so little rain that this is unnecessary. In 
winter, on the other hand, the country is cold because 
it lies high above the sea, and much snow falls since 
that is the season of storms. Since the roofs are fiat 
the snow must be shoveled off into the streets. In the 
larger towns, where the houses are often built with two 
stories, it is interesting to see how a man will push a big 
shovelful of snow off the roof to the street below, and 
then peek over the edge to see if he has hit any one. In 
the villages the snow is sometimes heaped up so high 
in the streets that it forms piles reaching far above the 
roofs of the one-story houses. Great hollows have to be 
dug in the snow to get to the doors of the houses. Once 



ANATOLIA: THE LAND OF THE SUNRISE 79 

a man came into the city and said that his son had 
broken an arm by faUing off the street on to the roof of 
the house. Of course everybody thought that he had 
said street in place of roof, but he had not. The boy 
had actually broken his arm by falling off one of the 
great piles of snow on to the flat mud roof. Such a 
thing could happen only in a country like the Anatolian 
Plateau. 

An Anatolian village is not a clean place. All sorts 
of dirty things are thrown into the streets. A traveler, 
approaching in the dark, can detect a village a quarter 
of a mile away by the peculiar, disagreeable smell. He 
is quite sure to hear dogs barking, too. Every village 
has many thin, short-haired dogs which belong to no 
one. They are never fed, but simply live on the refuse 
which people throw into the streets. If it were not for 
the dogs the people would suffer from sickness much 
more than they do, for the dogs, together with the ugly 
vultures that one sees everywhere, eat up all the bad 
things which would otherwise decay and cause disease. 

The Nomads of Anatolia. Among the open plains and 
rolling mountains of Anatolia much of the land is not 
occupied, for it is too dry to be cultivated without irri- 
gation. Naturally there are many shepherds in such a 
land. The village people, who raise wheat and other 
crops, are largely Turks. They do not like the name 
Turk, but call themselves Osmanlis. The shepherds are 
partly Turks and partly Yuruks and Turkomans. Part 
of the year they live in villages, but in summer they go 
out into the higher mountains and live in Httle, low tents 
of dark brown goat's-hair cloth. They are very hospi- 
table. In a village the traveler must usually spend the 
night in the so-called guest room, which is set aside for 
the use of anyone who happens to come along. Often 



8o 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



it is very dirty and is full of fleas and other extremely 
disagreeable insects. Hence in warm weather one is 




A Turk solving ivheat in Anatolia 

always glad to do as the people do and sleep on the flat 
roof. It is cool and pleasant there, and no rain falls in 
summer. When the people are living in tents their 
hospitality is much more pleasant. The traveler usually 
sleeps on the ground, as do the people. He merely 
spreads out a thick quilt or thin mattress, puts another 
of the same kind over him, and his bed is made. 

As soon as a guest arrives the headman of the village 
is called. In order to make a suitable feast in honor of 
the stranger, he often tells a boy to run and get a lamb 
from a flock which some other boys are taking care of. 
Each ragged boy wears at his side a little bag in which 
he carries some bread for dinner. Besides the bag, 
every one has a stick and a simple flute made of wood. 



- ANATOLIA: THE LAND OF THE SUNRISE 8i 

The boys know how to make the flutes themselves, 
and they play them very well. Often, when the 
traveler is far from any village and a mile or two from 
tents, he hears the sound of a flute and sees a boy 
walking along while his sheep come behind, following 
the music. The boys are not at all afraid to go into the 
mountains alone, although sometimes they meet wolves. 
Such boys generally do not know anything about 
reading or school. 

A Turkish Dinner. When the boys have caught a 
lamb, they bring it back to the tents, and it is cooked. 
When it is ready, a little after sunset, all the men gather 
in front of the chief's tent. The women have to stay 
away and keep their faces covered, because they are 
Mohammedans, and no woman is supposed to be seen by 
any man except her husband and brothers without 
having a veil over her face. The whole family does not 
eat together. The mother and daughters must wait 
till the father and sons eat, because women and girls 
are commonly despised. The Koran says that they have 
no souls. 

The method of eating is much the same among the 
Turks, whether they be rich, learned men like the 
old-fashioned mullah at Eregli or simple villagers. 
When it is time for the feast a cloth is spread on the 
ground in front of the tent. On it some one places a 
great many pieces of bread, forming a ring around the 
center. The bread consists of flat, crusty sheets, the 
shape and thickness of griddle cakes but much larger — 
about the size of our biggest plate. Fresh onions or 
large peppers, either green or red, are placed here and 
there on the bread. When all is ready the guests sit 
down cross-legged on the ground around the cloth. 
As they take their places a great dish full of rice cooked 



82 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



in fat is brought in, and with it is the meat of the 
lamb and some bowls of sour milk. No spoons, forks, 
knives, or plates are to be seen, and one wonders how it 
will be possible to eat. That does not trouble the 
natives. While the servants, or the young men, have 
been putting the food on the cloth , a boy has gone around 
to each person with a pitcher of water and a bowl. 




Women of ]]' ester ii Turkey 

Each one holds out his hands over the bowl and rinses 
them in the stream of water which the boy pours from 
the pitcher. Then the men roll back their sleeves a 
little and wait for some one to begin. The host urges 
them to eat, and they all reach out to the dish and help 
themselves with their hands. They take the meat in 
their fingers and, tearing it apart, offer pieces to one 
another before eating any themselves. Between the 
mouthfuls of rice, which they deftly pick up with their j 
greasy fingers, they eat a little bread or take a piece 
of it to use as a scoop with which to ladle up some 



ANATOLIA: THE LAND OF THE SUNRISE 83 

of the sour milk, which has about the consistency of 
custard. No one talks, for that is not considered 
polite during meals. Occasionally spoons are used, 
but good Mohammedans think they are not necessary. 
Mohammed said that the hands were the proper things 
to eat with, and his followers all over Asia eat in much 
the same way as the Turks and Turkomans of Asia 
Minor. After the meal the pitcher and bowl are brought 
around again for the guests to wash their hands. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE ARMENIAN PLATEAU 

Surface Features. As the Anatolian Plateau is fol- 
lowed eastward it becomes higher and narrower. The 
high part extends from about the line of the western 
bend of the Euphrates River to the Caspian Sea, It is 
called the Armenian Plateau. It has many high ridges 
of mountains upon it, and is by no means so regular as 
the Anatolian Plateau. 

In the distant past a great many volcanoes existed 
in this part of the world and built up mountains of 
lava rising high above the plateau. The most famous 
of these is Mount Ararat, one of the highest mountains 
of western Asia. The people who live near by are afraid 
to climb it, because they foolishly think that it is inhab- 
ited by evil spirits. They believe that pieces of Noah's 
ark are to be found on its top. Another volcano is 
Nimrud Dagh, on the edge of Lake Van. Its summit 
has the form of a huge hollow crater, perfectly round, 
and about five miles across. The deep, black crater is 
occupied by a lake fed by springs which are still heated 
by the warmth coming from the underlying rocks. 
In winter one side of this queer lake may be covered 
with thick ice, while the other side is warm and steaming 
like a Turkish bath. 

Another feature which diversifies the Armenian 
Plateau is the river valleys. Naturally a great many 
large rivers start from such a high region. At first they 
flow on top of the plateau among the bare, rolling 
uplands, but soon they have to cut across ridges or pass 
through volcanic mountains or go down the side of the 

84 



THE ARMENIAN PLATEAU 85 

plateau. In such places they have gradually cut tre- 
mendous canyons. One of the finest of these is that of 
the "Euphrates. Where this river crosses the Taurus 
Mountains, before reaching the plain of Mesopotamia, 
it flows through a gorge a mile deep. The water thun- 
ders over great rapids where no boat can escape being 
upset. The gorge is so narrow and its sides so steep 
that no one can get into it except by floating down the 
river, which is done by means of rafts made of inflated 
sheepskins. The natives remove the skins of the dead 
sheep without cutting any part except the neck. Then 
they blow into the bags which are thus formed and fill 
them with air. The necks are next tied up so that the 
bags are like big bladders. They are fastened under a 
light wooden frame and form fine rafts which can go 
safely through almost any rapids. When a journey 
down the river has been finished the raft is simply 
taken to pieces and the empty skins are put on the 
backs of donkeys or horses to be carried back up the 
river. Such rafts carry much grain and other prod- 
uce down the lower Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and 
are also used by fishermen. Unfortunately, they can be 
used only to go downstream, for they cannot be paddled 
up against the current. Often when the natives want 
to cross a river they blow up a skin and support them- 
selves upon it while they swim with their feet. 

The Basin-Plains of Armenia. The Armenian Plateau 
is made uneven not only by the volcanoes which rise 
above the plateau and the river gorges which cut deep 
below it but by many large blocks of country, from five 
to one hundred miles long, which have slowly sunk 
one or two thousand feet. Such sunken blocks form 
great basins. Some of them contain lakes, like Van in 
Turkey, Gokcha in Russia, and Urumia in Persia. 



86 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

Others have been partly filled by sand and clay brought 
down by streams from every side. They appear as 



^m^ 


IJ^hAiMiiiihiiiiiM aiii^ii 1 


f^h : 


r' ^ .^.-■y^-'^^''~''^^^'^i^^^^^ 




..: M "^' " ,-,._'■ .:■■.•:•,■.■;; ■■ 1 , ■|i .. .^1 JBU 


iiiib^ 








n^ ^:^m^^^^^-m^^ 



A village on the Armenian Plateau 

smooth, fertile plains surrounded by mountains. As the 
plains are lower than the rest of the country they are 
comparatively warm, and as they are made of fine silt 
their soil is rich. So they are decidedly the best part of 
the country. Of course they are dry in summer, but 
plenty of streams come down from the mountains, so that 
irrigation is easy. 

The large basin of Urumia, in the Persian part of the 
Armenian Plateau, contains both a lake and a plain. 
In the middle, looking almost like a sea, lies the great 
blue lake of ill-smelling water, which is very shallow 
and very salty. A broad, ugly strip of mud with a 
white crust of salt surrounds it, while beyond this, 
bending reeds form a green ring. Outside of the reeds 
lies a smooth plain, dotted with villages. This plain 
is green in the spring and brown all the rest of the 
year. The villages consist of flat-roofed mud houses like 



THE ARMENIAN PLATEAU 87 

those of Anatolia, and they are both dirty and bad- 
smeUing. From a distance one does not see all this, and 
the villages look very attractive. They appear like 
great orchards of apricot, plum, peach, apple, and mul- 
berry trees, with rows of tall poplars rising along the lines 
of the canals, which bring water. Each village is sur- 
rounded by smooth stretches of rich wheat fields, bright 
with scarlet poppies. On every side the plain is hemmed 
in by great mountains, the lower ones brown or only just 
tinted with green in spring, and the higher ones white 
with snow until far into the summer. 

The Armenian Highlands. Upon the h.eights, on every 
side of the basins, the rolling hills and mountains are 
treeless. Nomads wander about in summer, living in 
black tents and herding their fat-tailed sheep. For 
many months in winter the country is buried in snow, 
and the shepherds go into the valleys and spend the 
cold season in houses made of stone or in huts half dug 
out of the ground. A traveler in this country was once 
told by his guide that he was approaching a Kurdish vil- 
lage. He looked around but could see no signs of houses; 
the only thing he noticed was a little patch on the hillside 
below him where the ground had been trampled. He 
began to ride across this, when suddenly a man came 
rushing out of a hole in the ground and shouted out, 
"Get off my roof, get off my roof! You'll break through 
and kill my family!" The house was wholly under 
ground, and the traveler had ridden right on to the roof. 

The Diverse Races of Armenia. Two things are espe- 
cially noticeable about the Armenian Plateau. First, it 
is much divided into small, almost inaccessible districts 
by the mountains and gorges; and second, there is a 
great difference between the ease with which people can 
make a living in the basins and in the higher regions. 



88 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

Because it is divided into so many naturally separate 
parts, the plateau contains many different tribes and 
races with different customs and religions. There are 
Armenians, Nestorians, Persians, Turks, Kurds, Kizil- 
bashes, and Yezidis. The Yezidis are strange people 
who are called "devil-worshipers." They are afraid to 
say the word "satan," because they believe that if they 
do he will harm them. In their villages it is a sin to 
spit, and any one who does it is in danger of being 
mobbed. Long ago they used to wear blue as the holy 
color; now they have changed and hate blue, while they 
think that white is the color pleasing to God. If these 
people lived in the plains, they would probably become 
much like their neighbors; but because they are shut 
away among the mountains, they keep their strange 
customs. 

Where part of the people are prosperous and part 
poor, there is naturally much robbery. This is especially 
true where the government is weak. The Armenian 
Plateau is divided among three governments, the Russian, 
which is strong, and the Persian and the Turkish, which 
are weak. Two travelers had crossed a river one day 
and were sitting down in a village at noon to rest. The 
polite people, partly Armenians and partly Turks, 
brought out some quilts for the travelers to sit upon, 
and some sour milk, fiat cakes of bread, and water- 
melons with yellow flesh and brown seeds for them to 
eat.' As they sat in the shade of the mulberry trees 
beside the village spring a ragged shepherd, breathless 
and frightened, came running in from the hills. He 
hurried to a house where twenty soldiers were quartered, 
shouting excitedly. 

At once the soldiers took their guns, mounted their 
horses, and rode rapidly off. The villagers also got out 



THE ARMENIAN PLATEAU 



89 



their long, old-fashioned flintlock guns and went off in 
hot haste. At last some one stopped long enough to tell 




A -flock of sheep following their shepherd 

the travelers what had happened. Five shepherds with 
four hundred sheep were out on the mountain side 
above the village. Suddenly twenty Kurds came down 
upon them, shot two shepherds, and drove off all the 
sheep. The other shepherds ran to the village. All the 
villagers and the soldiers had gone out to have a fight 
with the Kurds and get back the sheep. They did not 
succeed, for the Kurds simply crossed over the bound- 
ary from Turkey to Persia, and the Turkish soldiers 
could not follow them into another country. 

Where Russia rules the Armenian Plateau there is not 
so much fighting and plundering; but even there it 
is hard to make the mountain people peaceable. In 
good years all is well, and the Turks, Armenians, Per- 
sians, and Nestorians of the plains would prosper if they 
were not too heavily taxed. In bad years, when the 
crops are poor or the sheep cannot get good pasture, 
the amount of robbery by the Kurds increases greatly. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE OIL FIELDS OF CAUCASIA 

From Constantinople to Baku. The trade route from 
Europe to Persia or central Asia lies through the Rus- 
sian province of Caucasia, north of the Armenian Plateau. 
Sailing 'from Constantinople, one lands at the fortified 
city of Batum at the eastern end of the Black Sea, 
and there takes the train. At first the railroad goes 
northward with the deep blue sea on the left and 
magnificent mountains on the right. There is much 
rain here where the west winds blow in from the 




Porters or hamals in the streets of Batum 
90 



THE OIL FIELDS OF CAUCASIA 



91 



Black Sea, and the mountains are covered with splendid 
forests of pine, chestnut, maple, and other trees. At 




Plowing with a woode.'i plow drawn by buffaloes in Caucasia, 
near Batum 

their base a thicket of rhododendron and azalea bushes 
fills the forest with the most wonderful pink, white, and 
yellow blossoms in the spring. Thirty miles north of 
Batum the railroad turns to the east, leaving the sea and 
entering a broad, rich valley. Far away to the north 
the snowy peaks of the Caucasus Mountains can be seen. 
Near at hand peasants dressed in odd, tight trousers and 
colored shirts are plowing the fertile fields with big, hair- 
less water buffaloes. At every station the train makes a 
long halt among the trees, as is often the case in Russian 
territory, and boys and girls come running down the 
platform to sell bunches of flowers or little birch-bark 
baskets full of strawberries. 

By and by, after many hours of traveling, the valley 
grows narrow and the railroad begins to wind. High up 
on a crag above the river one sees on this side or on that 



92 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

an old castle built in the days when the Georgians ruled 
the land. Their feudal lords built strongholds here on 
the Rion River, just as the old German lords built castles 
on the Rhine. At length the train enters a long tunnel 
under a low mountain range which runs north from the 
Armenian Plateau to the Caucasus Mountains. On the- 
eastern side of the tunnel a new kind of scenery appears. 
There are very few trees, for much of the rain brought 
by the westerly winds from the Black Sea is shut out by 
the mountains. A broad, grassy valley descends gently 
eastward between distant mountains, from which the 
streams all run toward the Caspian Sea. Famous Tifiis, 
the capital of Caucasia, is passed. It is disappointing 
because, although it is well built, it is not so interesting 
as one expects, and is much like many cities in Europe. 
As the train approaches the Caspian Sea the hillsides 
grow drier, villages become less frequent, and, finally, 
the country is almost a desert. 

Oil as Fuel for Railroads. All the way from Batum 
a large pipe runs close to the railroad track. At first it 
does not occur to the traveler to connect this pipe with 
the facts that no cinders come from the engines and that 
there are no firemen shoveling coal. When the train 
stops to water the engine, one sometimes wonders why 
there are two pipes instead of one pouring liquid into the 
tender. The reason is that the engine burns petroleum, 
or crude oil. The large pipe beside the track carries it 
five hundred miles from the Caspian Sea to the Black 
Sea, where ships take the oil and carry it all over the 
East. Baku is the greatest oil field in the world. We 
have much oil in America, but no single place here can 
begin to compare with this great Russian oil center. 
Almost a quarter of the world's oil comes from this one 
small region. 



THE OIL FIELDS OF CAUCASIA 



93 



Baku and Its Surroundings. Baku is a dirty, disa- 
greeable place, where there seems to be nothing but oil. 
The people all talk about nothing but oil, and everything 
smells of it. In many places houses are stained with 
it; the streets are often sticky with it; and wherever one 
goes the drinking water has upon its surface a little 
scum of oil. 

Baku itself lies on the shore of the Caspian Sea in 




In the oil fields at Baku 

order to be near a harbor. The oil fields are a mile or 
two to the west and south. As one looks down upon 
Bibi-Eibat, south of Baku, he sees scores or hundreds of 
great, black pyramidal towers each of which marks an 
oil well. They suggest enormous black gravestones in a 
cemetery of giants. Down among them the streets are 
oozy with oil. Here and there along the roadside, 
women with buckets stand beside dirty pools and seem 
to be washing clothes in the filthy water. Really, they 



94 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

are gathering the family supply of fuel. The pools are 
covered with oil, which floats because it is lighter than 
water. The women dip cloths into this surface layer, 
and when the cloths are soaked with oil it is squeezed 
out into the buckets. When a woman has collected a 
pailful she goes home and cooks dinner with it in a rough 
oil stove. 

It is a poor plan to wear good clothes in the oil 
fields, for near the towers drops of oil are spattered 
in every direction. Greasy Persians, Turkomans, and 
Armenians are hard at work running machines which 
pump up the oil from deep wells, and put it into reser- 
voirs or tanks. From these it is pumped into cars or 
ships or into pipe lines, or is fed into a distilling appa- 
ratus, where it is heated a little in order to separate it into 
different parts. This is the first process in making gaso- 
line, kerosene, vaseline, aniline dyes, and various other 
most valuable products, all of which are derived from 
petroleum. 

The Oil Deposits. A few million years ago the coun- 
try where Baku now stands was part of the bottom of 
the sea. Great numbers of shellfish and seaweeds lived 
and died in the water. Their bodies gathered on the 
floor of the sea and were gradually covered by hundreds 
of feet of mud, sand, and ooze. After thousands and 
thousands of years the bottom of the sea was slowly 
raised and became land. Meanwhile, the dead plants 
and animals had gradually changed in chemical form 
and had been converted into petroleum and natural gas. 
These products, being very light in weight, gathered in 
certain places where the rock arched upward, and leaked 
to the surface through cracks. Thus men noticed them 
and, having at last discovered their use, began to hunt 
for larger supplies. They employed steam drills to bore 



THE OIL FIELDS OF CAUCASIA 



95 



round holes deep into the rock, and up through the holes 
gas and oil came pouring with tremendous force. Some- 




A watering cart at Batum 

times the rush of gas was so violent that it shot the drill 
out like a bullet from a gun, and wrecked the machinery 
that was being used. Then oil mixed with sand was 
poured out in a huge fountain rising two hundred feet 
into the air. At Baku, in 1901, some fountains like this 
broke out and flooded whole villages with oil. It ran 
through the streets like water, and filled the lower parts 
of the houses, driving all the people away. Now and 
then such fountain^, or "gushing wells," get on fire from 
lightning or some accident. No one can put them out, 
and they may burn for weeks, like the flaring torches of 
mighty giants. 

The Water Supply. The vast amount of oil at Baku 
has caused a city of more than a hundred thousand 



96 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

inhabitants to grow up. The region is so dry that there 
is not enough fresh water for so many people. All the 
little springs for many miles were first used, and then 
the inhabitants began to drink the water from the Caspian 
Sea. Of course the sea water is salty and undrinkable. 
To get rid of the salt the water is boiled and distilled, 
thus making it very pure. The only impurity is oil, which 
floats on the surface of the sea near Baku, and is so 
easily made into vapor that it rises with the steam of 
the water when this is boiled to free it from the salt. 
Baku is the only city in the world which uses distilled 
water. It would be enormously expensive if there were 
not so much oil close at hand to be used as cheap fuel. 
Shipping the Oil. From Baku, oil is shipped to all parts 
of eastern Europe and Asia. Much is carried in steam- 
ers to the mouth of the Volga River, and there trans- 
ferred to smaller boats to be carried up the river into the 
interior of Russia. The Volga has deposited so much 
silt at its mouth that the Caspian Sea is there very shal- 
low, and large steamers must anchor several miles off 
shore. Accordingly, the river boats come out into sea 
to the anchorage. There, where the oil is transferred 
from the large craft to the small, a little town has grown 
up in the midst of the sea, almost out of sight of land. 
Merchants have anchored rafts in the shallow water, and 
all manner of trade goes on between the river boats and 
the Caspian steamers. The oil of Baku, after being 
buried under the rocks for hundreds of thousands of 
years, has now caused men to build two strange towns — 
a very large one which drinks sea water, and a small one 
in the midst of the sea itself. 



CHAPTER X 



THE WATERLESS LAND OF PERSIA 

The Pleasant Aspect of Persia. Books about Persia 
give two very different impressions. Some describe the 
country as pleasant and 
beautiful. Others say that 
it is one of the saddest 
countries in the world. The 
writers who say that it is 
beautiful describe a city 
such as Ispahan. They say 
that the streets are filled 
with busy, happy people. 
Merchants sit cross-legged 
in tiny little stores, which 
are not at all like stores in 
America but merely small 
rooms about ten feet 
square, with one side com- 
pletely open to the street. 
/TV, 1 , ... ,1 Persian dervishes 

The merchant sits m the 

middle, where he can reach almost everything without 
getting up. He smokes a great water pipe in which the 
smoke passes through a vase-like jar of water, bubbling 
merrily. The buyers stand in front of the shop and 
examine this thing and that. 

Perhaps a man wants to buy one of the beautiful rugs 
for which Persia is famous. The merchant says the price 
is twenty dollars; the buyer says it is worth only four. 
They talk a long time, and say impolite things in loud 
voices, but no one minds that in the least. At length 




97 



98 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

l 
the merchant says, "Well, to please you, because you 

are one of my dearest friends, I will sell the rug for , 

fifteen dollars, although I paid sixteen for it. I would | 

rather die than sell it any cheaper." The buyer answers, 

"I will give you ten dollars for it, because I love you. 

Ten dollars is all the money I have, and I could not 

pay another cent if you were to whip me all day to 

make me." 

As they cannot agree, the buyer goes away. For an 
hour or two he wanders among the donkeys, mules, horses, 
and camels which fill the narrow streets of the market 
place or bazaar. Then he comes back to the rug man. "I 
will give you eleven dollars," he says. "Fourteen; not 
a penny less," is the reply. They talk a little longer, and 
at last the rug is sold for twelve dollars and a half. The 
merchant sends his boy out to a little shop across the 
street to get some tiny glasses full of tea. When it comes ': 
he offers some to the buyer, and insists on putting lump ! 
after lump of sugar into it; for the more sugar put in, 
the more polite is the host considered. Neither man 
seems to feel at all ashamed of the fact that he has told 
a dozen out-and-out lies. That is the way business is done ^ 
in Persia and in most parts of Southwestern Asia. The ' 
merchant really bought the rug for eleven dollars. He 
has finally sold it at a fair price. The Persians are never 
in a hurry, but like to spend time in bargaining, and 
they seem to enjoy arguing about the price of things. j 

If the merchant sells one or two rugs in a day he is I 
satisfied. He goes home early to a pleasant, white- ! 
washed house where his two wives live. In front of it ' 
his children are playing under some tall poplar trees be- i 
side a pool of water. "Come," he says to them, let's go I 
and water the garden." To do it, he opens a pipe at | 
the bottom of the square pool. The w^ater then flows out I 



THE WATERLESS LAND OF PERSIA 99 

into a little ditch and runs away past some rose bushes 
to a garden full of onions, lettuce, melons, cucumbers, 
beets, and all sorts of fine vegetables. Here it spreads 
into many small channels, so that water soon stands 
in every part of the garden. The children take off their 
shoes, which are like slippers, and wade around in the 
mud, turning the water first into one little ditch and 
then into another. They do not wear any stockings. 
Then the father takes a spade and shovels up some 
mud, so as to turn the water into another ditch. In 
this it flows off to a vineyard full of splendid vines, 
and to an orchard of fruit trees — peaches, apricots, 
plums, nectarines, mulberries, pears, and apples. It is 
all very pleasant and delightfuL 

The Unpleasant Aspect of Persia. Another traveler 
tells a different story of the very same region. "Near 
Ispahan," he says, "I found many of the houses in the 
villages deserted. Half the shops in the city were 
closed. The people looked thin, sick, and hungry. 
Many of them were too weak to walk. Children were 
out in the fields gathering weeds and grasses which had 
grown up in the few days since the spring rain began. 
They brought them home, and the sick mothers cooked 
them. That was all that many families had to eat. 
For a year or more they had scarcely had a good meal. 
Many had died, and many had gone away. The rest 
were living, as best they could, in the hope that this 
year the crops would not fail, as they had for the last few 
years. Day after day the people prayed for rain. If 
rain came, they might be able to live. If it did not 
come, they would all die." 

The Lack of Rain in Persia. Both travelers described 
the country correctly. Lack of rain is the cause of 
Persia's poverty ; and it is one of the chief reasons why 



I 



lOO 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



the country is not well ruled, and why its people are 
often discontented and want to change their form of 




A village among the mountains of Persia 

government. Persia, like most of the countries which 
we have been studying, has a very long dry season in 
summer and a rainy season in the winter and early 
spring. Even in good years the amount of rain is 
small, because of the mountains which surround the 
country. From the Armenian Plateau two mountain 
systems branch out. One bends a little to the south 
and forms the boundary between Southwestern Asia and 
Northern Asia, and the other bends far to the south 
and skirts the Indian Ocean. The two join again at 
the Pamirs. Between them lies the great basin of Iran. 
The western part of the basin forms the larger part of 
Persia, and the eastern Afghanistan and Baluchistan. 
All of it is extremely dry; and the places that have most 
watei- are near the highest mountains. Wherever there is 






THE WATERLESS LAND OF PERSIA loi 

water, cities and villages are located, but where there is 
no water the country is a desert. When the winter rain 
is fairly abundant the people live easily and are happy. 
When the rain is scanty the crops fail and the Persians 
starve. In the dry years it is very hard to pay taxes, 
and the poor people begin to hate the government which 
demands them. 

The Habitable Parts of Persia. The best part of 
Persia, and the section where most of the people live, 
is the northwest, which includes a portion of the well- 
watered Armenian Plateau. Another place which the 
Persians call good, although we should call it very dry 
and poor, is the moruntainous region of Khorassan in the 
northeast. The north slope of the Elburz Mountains, 
near the Caspian Sea, is very fertile, as we saw in the 
first chapter. Indeed, it has almost too much water. 
All the rest of Persia is dry, and the center is a vast, 
uninhabitable desert. 

Modes of Travel: "Serais." In the drier regions it is 
very hard to travel, for water can be found only at 
intervals of from ten to thirty miles. In order to make 
it easier for caravans, rich men often build ;large buildings 
called "serais" or "caravanserais," and give them to the 
public; just as men in America found colleges or endow 
hospitals for the benefit of all the people. A serai is a 
sort of public hotel, made usually of brick, and located 
sometimes in a desert and sometimes in a town. In the 
middle a great open court is surrounded on two or three 
sides by a platform divided into many sections. Behind 
each section there is a small, dark room. The other side 
is given up to large, windowless stables. One corner 
is devoted to a cistern, where the water of a spring is 
carefully conserved. When a caravan comes in at 
night the tired men take possession of any rooms that 



I02 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



happen to be empty, and put their horses, donkeys, 
and camels in the stable, or else leave them in the court- 
yard. They bring food with them both for themselves 
and their animals in many cases, for there is often 
nothing to be bought if a serai is located in the desert. 
In the morning the caravans start early, while it is cool; 
and often they travel by night to avoid the heat. No 
one pays anything for the use of the serais, except in the 
large cities, and every man has a right to use them. 

The Deserts of Eastern Persia. The southeastern 
corner of Persia, where it joins Baluchistan and Afghan- 
istan, contains a well -populated district called Seistan. 
To get there one must ride a month or two on camels or 
horses from the north of Persia. Part of the time the 
way is over salt plains, and part of the time among 
mountains. The mountains have no trees and grass 




A caravanserai in a village in eastern Persia 



THE WATERLESS LAND OF PERSIA 103 

like those of eastern America. Their surface is bare, 
splintered rock. If ever they had any soil it has all 




Tents of nomads pitched beside a well in a desert in 
eastern Persia 

been washed away by occasional rains in winter. The 
only water is found in small brooks or springs, some of 
which are so salty that after drinking one feels more 
thirsty than before. The streams do not flow far, for 
at the base of the mountains the water all sinks into 
great deposits of gravel. 

If Americans were set down in such a land they would 
say that it was impossible to live there, and would move 
away. The people of Iran, however, have learned to 
use even this poor country. Here and there a miserable 
mud-walled little village is located beside a spring in 
the midst of the desert, or nomads pitch their low, black 
tents beside a well. In the east of Persia the nomads 
are either fierce Baluchis or Afghans with dark skins 
and dark hair, which the men smear with grease and 
wear long over their ears. The young men, who want 
to be in style, mix up a paste of charcoal and put it 
around their eyes to make them look black and, as they 
think, beautiful. The only work of the nomads is to 
care for their sheep, goats, camels, and donkeys, which 



I04 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

manage to pick up a scanty living where our sleek 
American animals would starve. The nomads live 
largely on the milk of their cattle. For a month or 
two they camp at a wretched little spring, until all the 
scattered bits of grass are eaten; then they move off 
to another, and set up their tents again. 

The Nomadic Tribes of Seistan. In May, soon after 
the beginning of the dry season, there is almost no grass 
left for the nomads, and many of the springs begin to 
disappear or become very small and bitter. The nomads 
who live in the middle of eastern Persia take their 
flocks and tents and, leaving the mountains, cross a 
great, sloping plain of bare gravel. This plain is like 
an enormous beach twenty miles wide or more. As the 
nomads descend, the air grows hotter and hotter. At 
length they find themselves on the edge of a bluff from 
which they look down upon the vast plain of Seistan. 
Here, spread out before them, they see a great lake j 
as long as Lake Champlain and much wider. It is very 
shallow, only about ten feet deep in the middle. Once 
some Englishmen brought a little sailboat to the lake, 
and were much frightened when a high wind threatened 
to upset them. At last a sudden gust tipped every- 
body out into the water five or six miles from shore. 
They all began to swim, but were much surprised 
when their feet touched the bottom, and they found 
that the water was only three feet deep. 

There is no more rain in Seistan than in the other 
parts of eastern Persia; but a great river, the Helmand, 
comes hundreds of miles from the snowy Hindu Kush 
Mountains, and here forms a lake. The lake is sur- 
rounded by swampy tracts covered with wiry grass, 
or with great reeds ten or fifteen feet high. The nomads 
prefer the grassy places; for there they can find both 



I 



THE WATERLESS LAND OF PERSIA 



loS 



water and grass — the two things which make life possi- 
ble for their animals and for themselves. It is clear 




A group of Fowlers before a reed house, 
spinning 



The woman is 



that if people are going to live at all in the mountains 
around the lake of Seistan they must be nomads who 
depend on their flocks and herds. 

The Fowlers of Seistan. In addition to the Baluchi 
and Afghan nomads there are two other kinds of people 
in Seistan — the Sayids, or Fowlers, and the real Seistanis, 
who are farmers. The Fowlers are a people who have 
adapted themselves to living among the great reed 
beds which border a large part of the lake. Following 
a narrow muddy path among the tall reeds, one suddenly 
comes to an opening where everything has been cut 
down. In the middle stands a group of houses and 



io6 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

Stables, made wholly of reeds. In building the stables 
the reeds are simply tied into big bundles and set up 
like a close fence. Then other bundles are tied to these 
in such a way that they slope inward a little. That 
is all. There is no roof, and it takes only a day for one 
man to make a large stable, with no tool except his 
clumsy knife. He does not even need any rope, for he 
uses the leaves of the reeds instead, twisting them into 
strings. 

When a house is to be made the process is almost 
the same, except that a few poles are set up in the 
middle, and bundles of reeds are supported on them 
to form a roof. Sometimes the people weave large 
pieces of reed matting and bend this up into arches to 
make houses. Both this and the other kind of house are 
easy to make, and the Fowlers think nothing of leaving 
an old house and building a new one somewhere else. 

In a few places the Fowlers have small fields on the 
edge of the swamp, but most of their living comes from 
two kinds of animals which feed among the reeds. 
The animals are cows and birds. The cows, which have 
humps on their shoulders, are small and run half wild. 
Each Fowler knows his own animals, and gathers 
them together at certain times. The cows eat nothing 
but reeds, which are very hard and tough after they 
turn brown in the fall. In order to get rid of the old 
stalks, the Fowlers burn the swamp in January and 
February, and thus give the young green shoots a chance 
to grow. When the government sends its officers to 
collect taxes, the Fowlers have a habit of turning all 
their animals out into the thickest part of the swamp. 
They then go off themselves so that no one can find them. 
They have headmen who govern them with almost no 
reference to the rest of Persia. 



THE WATERLESS LAND OF PERSIA 107 

When the birds from Siberia and the northern parts of 
Asia go south in winter, many of the waterfowl gather at 




Two Fowlers on a canoe or raft of reeds on the shallow waters 
of lake of Seistan 

Seistan. The water of the lake is covered with thousands 
upon thousands of ducks and geese. Pelicans with 
huge bags under their beaks and swans with long, 
graceful necks swim in the water, while long-legged 
snipe and other less common birds run about on the 
water's edge. In order to catch them, the Fowlers 
make heavy, clumsy rafts by tying bundles of reeds into 
the form of solid canoes. The raftsmen very seldom 
use paddles, for the water is so shallow that they can 
pole themselves to all parts of the lake. Every day 
during the winter most of the men of the village go out 
to catch birds, starting usually at sunset — two sturdy- 
limbed, blue-coated men on each yellow raft. Slowly, 
through the purple shadows of evening, they scatter here 
and there along the reedy borders of the lake. First 



io8 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER ^ 

one and then another disappears among the reeds, 
where they enter narrow channels only five or six feet 
wide. Across these they spread nets supported on 
sticks in such a way that, when a string is pulled, the nets 
will fall. Then hiding themselves among the reeds, 
the men wait until a sleepy bird comes swimming 
along. The bird strikes the unseen net, the men pull 
the string, the net falls, and it is caught. In this way a 
single Fowler may get hundreds of birds every season, 
and on these he and his family live. These people 
believe that the lake and the reeds belong entirely 
to them. If anyone else puts a boat* or raft on the 
lake, they go by night and destroy it. Their life is as 
dependent upon the water and the reeds as that of 
, the nomads is upon the water and the grass. ' 

The Farmers of Seistan. The majority of the people 
of Seistan are farmers. Their home is the plain outside 
the swamp. Its soil is as good as that of our prairies, 
but the country is so dry that nothing can grow 
without irrigation. Every fall, when the Helmand 
River is very low, the governor of Seistan gathers hun- 
dreds of men from the villages and sets them at work 
to make a dam. They cut enormous quantities of tama- 
risks — a kind of bush ten or twelve feet high. These 
they tie into big bundles and throw into the river, 
weighting them down with stones. In this way they 
build a large dam, and turn the river out of its bed into 
a great number of canals or ditches, which run over the 
plain in various directions. From the canals the water 
is made to flow out over the fields and moisten them. 

As the water often stands on a field for many days in 
winter, the ground becomes soaked, and the paths which 
serve as roads become so soft that a man on foot may 
sink to his knees in mud. Where the paths cross canals 



I 



* 



THE WATERLESS LAND OF PERSIA 109 

there are no bridges, unless the canals happen to be so 
deep that the water comes above a man's waist. Accord- 
ingly, the natives are constantly obliged to wade, even 
in winter, and therefore suffer greatly from rheumatism. 

Seistan is so warm that the people begin to plant the 
crops in February and to reap them in April. During 
the time when the crops are growing the river furnishes 
a fair supply of water, and almost all of it is turned on to 
the fields. In April the river begins to rise, because the 
snow is melting at its source far away to the northeast, 
on the high Hindu Kush Mountains. In May and June 
the water rises much higher, until there is a flood that 
washes away the main dam completely. The people do 
not care, because most of the crops have already been 
harvested. In the fall they will make another dam, just 
as they have done for centuries. They do not know how 
to build dams which will last from year to year. 

Effects of Climate and Physiography. Seistan is not 
a pleasant place in which to live. During the four 
hottest months a tremendous north wind blows day 
and night. Europeans who have lived there in tents 
say that the flapping and snapping of the cloth and 
ropes make such a noise that one person cannot hear 
another talk. Out of doors it is almost impossible 
to see, because one's eyes are so completely filled with 
dust. Yet the people do not want the wind to stop, for 
when it dies down the air becomes full of mosquitoes, 
flies, and gnats from the swamps ; and life then is almost 
unendurable. The wind is so strong that trees cannot 
grow unless they are protected by enormous mud walls. 
So there are no orchards, although the people need fruit 
very much in hot weather. They have no kind of fruit 
except watermelons, which, of course, grow on the 
ground. Since trees cannot grow, the houses are built 



no ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

wholly of mud, even the roofs being constructed of mud 
bricks built into domes. The only houses not made 
wholly of mud are found in the tamarisk swamps near 
the river. There an arch of tamarisk poles is daubed 
with mud, making a very simple sort of house. 

Animals suffer greatly in Seistan during the summer. 
The swamps breed a species of fly whose bite is fatal to 
horses. Dogs are attacked by a common disease which 
either kills them or leaves them blind. The jackals 
which infest the tamarisk jungle in large numbers 
sometimes go mad in the heat of summer, and bite not 
only one another, but dogs, horses, and even men. 
Camels are the best kind of beast of burden in Seistan, 
but they have terrible diseases. A few years ago a 
British official party went to Seistan to settle the bound- 
ary between Persia and Afghanistan. They had 
twelve hundred camels. Half of the animals died in 
about a year from a disease resembling influenza. 
Sometimes thirty or forty died in a day. The Seistanis 
are so poor that they quarreled eagerly with one another 
to get even the wretched meat of these animals that had 
died of a contagious disease. 

In Seistan, more than in most places, it is evident 
that the people live in certain ways because of their 
peculiar relations to climate, mountains, rivers, lakes, and 
plains. In the first place, there is no rain in summer 
and very little in winter. In the second place, there 
are high mountains far away in Afghanistan which sup- 
ply water for a large river. In the third place, the river 
comes to an end in a very shallow lake surrounded by a 
flat plain outside of which there are low, dry mountains. 
Close to the lake there are reedy marshes. Therefore, 
we have three kinds of people: The nomads, who live 
in the dry mountains as long as they can but must 



THE WATERLESS LAND OF PERSIA iil 

come to the lake in the hot summer; the Fowlers, who 
live in the marshes and get their living from the lake; 
and the true Seistanis, who live on the plain and make 
a living by using the water of the Helmand River to 
water their crops. The three kinds of people live 
close to one another ; but they are very different because 
each kind has adapted its way of life to a certain kind 
of surroundings. 



CHAPTER XI 

AFGHANISTAN: THE "BUFFER STATE" 

On the Frontier. Some British officers were at breakfast 
one spring morning at the military club at Peshawar, in 
the northwest corner of India. "Have you heard the I 
news?" said a captain, who had just come in. "The i 
Afghan tribesmen have crossed the border again. They i 
burned a village last night and drove off two hundred 
horses. I hear they are making raids in other places, too, 
and I fear it means another war in those awful moun- i 
tains. That is the worst place on earth in which to ! 
attack an enemy, who does nothing but run up into the 
tops of the hills and shoot down on the people below 
in the valley." 

At the same time some Russian officers were talking | 
in Merv, six hundred miles away to the northwest, in i 
the Russian province of Transcaspia. A major was I 
speaking: "They say the Afghans have built a new , 
dam across the Heri-Rud, near Herat. They have i 
turned off most of the water of the river, and the people j 
at Tejeii cannot get enough to keep their crops alive. 
I fear we shall have to teach those Afghans another 
lesson. They are bad people to fight with, but we 
can't have them cut off our water supply." 

We generally think of Afghanistan as a little country. 
It looks small on the map, but it is larger than either 
France or Germany. The number of inhabitants, how- 
ever, is small — only four or five million, or less than a 
tenth as many as Germany has. The Afghans are not 
rich; they have not much trade, and their country is not 
particularly desirable. Yet, as the conversation of the 



AFGHANISTAN: THE "BUFFER STATE" 113 

English and Russian officers shows, England and Russia 
both dread the possibility of quarreling with them, and 




A Baluchi minstrel and his hoys beside a hut of reed matting 
on the border of Afghanistan 

have tried in every way to keep on good terms with 
Afghanistan. 

The Boundaries of Afghanistan. The boundaries of 
Afghanistan make much trouble. The Sulaiman Moun- 
tains, the eastern boundary, rise steeply on the Indian 
side, where they are uninhabitable and hard to traverse. 
At their base lie the rich villages of the plains of India. 
On the Afghan side the mountains assume the form of 
a plateau which is quite easy to traverse and is inhab- 
ited by a scanty population of warlike nomads, who 
like to make raids. If the mountains were high enough 
or were cold enough to be uninhabitable, they would 
form a good boundary. As it is, England cannot protect 
the people of India unless she rules the mountains 
and keeps the Afghan tribes in order. But she does 



114 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

not want to do this. She wants to keep Afghanistan as 
an independent country, or "buffer state," as it is 
called, between herself and Russia. England has even 
promised not to interfere with the Afghans, but their 
mountainous country makes them so warlike that she 
cannot help herself. Either she must let them plunder 
all they choose, or keep them in order by force. 

On the north the boundary of Afghanistan is also 
a source of trouble. There is not much raiding and 
plundering there, but difficulties arise because the 
boundary cuts right across the rivers after they leave 
the mountains. In these dry regions a river is the most 
valuable of all possessions to a country. Without it life 
is impossible. The oases of Tejefi, Merv, and Khiva, 
ruled by Russia, get their water from rivers which rise 
in Afghanistan and flow north. In dry years the 
Afghans are wont to take more than their share of 
water, and leave the oases to suffer. Of course, that 
makes the people hate Afghanistan. Russia has to 
protect her subjects, and to try to make the Afghans 
leave the water alone. 

The western boundary of Afghanistan suffers from a 
similar difficulty. The oasis of vSeistan is divided 
between the Afghans and the Persians. The boundary 
is supposed to be the course of the main stream of the 
Helmand River. The Helmand, however, like all 
rivers flowing through deltas, has a habit of changing its 
course near its mouth. When this happens the Persians 
and the Afghans both claim the land between the old 
channel and the new. They also quarrel because each 
side accuses the other of taking more than its share of 
water for irrigation. On the whole, the boundaries of 
Afghanistan are such that Afghanistan is in constant 
danger of quarreling with England, Russia, and Persia. 



AFGHANISTAN: THE "BUFFER STATE' 



15 



The Afghan Plateaus. The larger part of Afghanistan 
consists of the great plateaus and lofty mountains which 




Afghan women making bread. They heat stoyies in the fire, spread 

the dough upon them, then replace them, in the hot ashes 

until the bread is baked 

occupy the north-central and eastern part of the country. 
Here the whole of a great district, five hundred miles 
long from east to west and two hundred miles wide, lies 
at an elevation of nearly a mile above the sea. In 
many places large areas lie at heights of eight thou- 
sand or ten thousand feet, while the higher peaks rise to 
fifteen thousand or even twenty thousand feet. In such 
a region there is naturally much rain and snow, and it 
is very cold in winter. Even in summer it is so cool 
that crops can be raised profitably only in the more 
favored valleys. There is much good grass, however, 
and therefore the people have a great many flocks and 
live largely on milk. Most of them have low houses of 
stone 'and mud for use in winter ; but in the summer 
they leave these and live in tents, wandering from place 



Ii6 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

to place with the flocks. The mountains are so high 
that it is not easy to cross the main ranges. Therefore, 
the people of one valley, or small plateau, do not have 
much to do with those of another. So the Afghans are 
divided into clans or tribes, as were the inhabitants of 
Scotland a. few centuries ago; and the people of the 
various tribes are not very friendly with one another. 

The Afghan Farming Country. The best part of 
Afghanistan is on the edges of the central plateau region. 
There the mountains descend gradually to broad plains 
of gravel. Deep valleys have been cut into them by 
rivers, such as the Helmand and Heri-Rud; and in these 
valleys at a height of from two to five thousand feet 
or more above the sea, lie many prosperous villages. 
Among the low mountains, fair valleys are filled with, 
orchards and gardens; while out on the edge of the 
surrounding plain, patches of green fields surround 
the mud villages of prosperous farmers. No rain falls in 
summer except a few showers on the higher mountains, 
and the hillsides are parched and bare. But in many 
places this does no special harm, for the rivers, coming 
from the snowy highlands, supply abundant water for 
irrigation. 

In some places, however, where there are no rivers, 
it is not so easy to get water. In Afghanistan, as 
in Persia, the villagers often dig tunnels for miles 
through the gravel at the foot of the mountains. The 
tunnels slope a little so that water runs down them, 
but they do not slope so steeply as the surface of the 
ground. Thus, as a tunnel is followed upward, it gets 
deeper and deeper under ground, even though it rises 
a little. In this way it penetrates deep layers of gravel 
which are full of water. In digging the tunnels it is 
necessary to sink wells every fifty or a hundred feet, in 



AFGHANISTAN: THE "BUFFER STATE" 



117 



order to have some way of lifting the earth out from 
the tunnel to the surface. Where there are many 
"kanats," as the tunnels are called, the whole plain 
around a village is dotted with piles of earth arranged 
in long lines around the mouths of the wells. Every 
year or two the tunnels have to be cleaned out. To do 
this, windlasses are set up over the wells and men are 
let down with bags, into which they shovel the earth 




Villagers digging a well in a gravelly plain on the border of 
Afghanistan 

that has fallen in. Often they find hundreds of harm- 
less water snakes curled up in the little brooks at the 
bottom of the tunnels. 

, Afghan Raids. Poor people frequently envy those 
who are richer than themselves. Accordingly, the 
Afghans of the mountains envy their neighbors in the 
prosperous lower villages. As the mountaineers have 
never learned to work, and as they are in the habit of 
moving easily from place to place, it seems to them quite 
natural and right to plunder the lowlanders. They 
regard a raid as part of the work of making a living. 



Ii8 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

In this way they have become very warlike ; and as 
the villagers on the edges of the mountains have to pro- 
tect themselves, they, too, are good fighters. When 
the Afghans carry their raids across the border into 
India, it makes great trouble for the English govern- 
ment, as we learned from the conversation of the offi- 
cers at Peshawar. 

The Wild Siah-Posh Tribes. The far northeast corner 
of Afghanistan is inhabited by people called Siah-Posh, 
who carry the warlike character of mountaineers to its 
extreme development. They are pagans, who have been 
driven by Mohammedan conquerors into the most 
remote and barren parts of the mountains. Naturally, 
they hate their conquerors. Living where none but 
the hardiest can survive, they glory in enduring cold 
and hunger, and count it creditable to go around with 
one arm naked in bitter winter weather. All men 
except those of their own immediate valleys are enemies 
to them. No young man can take a wife until he has 
killed at least three or four of the hated Mohammedans. 

The Route from Europe to India. Aside from its poor 
boundaries and warlike people, there is another thing 
which compels England and Russia to pay a great deal 
of attention to Afghanistan. From the Black Sea on the 
west almost to the Pacific Ocean — five thousand miles 
away on the east — the continent of Asia, as we have seen, 
is divided into sections by very high mountains. No 
railroads have yet been built across the mountains, and it 
is probable that only a few ever will be built. The 
slopes are too steep, and the expense of building roads 
and of running trains would be too great. On the 
western border of Afghanistan, however, there is a low 
place where a railroad could cross the mountains very 
easily, without climbing to an elevation of more than two 



AFGHANISTAN: THE "BUFFER STATE" 119 

or three thousand feet. Hundreds of thousands or, per- 
haps, a million years ago, a great break took place in 
the earth's crust along the line which is now followed 
by the boundary between Afghanistan and Persia. 
Little by little the country on the Afghan side sank. 
Each time that the earth sank a few inches or a foot, a 
great earthquake doubtless occurred. Then a period of 
quiet ensued, to be followed after some years by another 
movement and earthquake. Thus the Afghan side of 
the break, or fault as it is called, fell slowly for hundreds 
of thousands of years, until now it is several thousand 
feet lower than the Persian side. The Heri-Rud flows 
in the northern part of the low place on the Afghan side 
of the fault, and the lake of Seistan lies in the southern 
part. Along this line it is easy to travel. Some day a 
railroad will be^ built here, and then this will be much the 
quickest way from Europe to India. 

The trade of India is extremely large and valuable, and 
England would be very sorry to have it turned from her 
to some other country. Therefore, she is eager that such 
a railroad should be under her control. Many English- 
men do not want it, because if it were built a great amount 
of trade would go to Russia. Already, however, the 
English have completed a railroad across the Sulaiman 
Mountains in India to the eastern border of Afghan- 
istan, near Kandahar, and the Russians have built one 
to the other border, near Herat. Some day the two 
will join. 

The Route from Russia to the Sea. To Russia the low 
place in the mountains on the west side of Afghanistan is 
very important also. Her population is growing fast, 
and manufacturing is developing rapidly. Her leaders 
desire to develop trade. For this, harbors are needed. 
All her harbors are either on the cold northern seas, 



I20 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

where ice prevents shipping for six months or more, 
or else they are on inclosed seas like the Baltic and the 
Black, where other nations hold the outlet and can block 
her if they choose. There are just three places where 
Russia can easily reach an outlet to a warm ocean. 
One is at the western end of Asia. There she has 
tried to get possession of Constantinople and the Bos- 
porus, but England has prevented her. Another is in 
Manchuria, where she took Port Arthur, which she had 
to give up after the war with Japan. The third is across 
Afghanistan. If Russia could build a railroad straight 
across that country to a port on the Indian Ocean, it 
would help her wonderfully. It is not strange that both 
England and Russia consider Afghanistan of so much 
political importance. 

Baluchistan. South of Afghanistan lies the little 
country of Baluchistan. It is part of the basin region of 
Iran, but is governed by the English in India. It is a 
dry, desolate land, like the desert portions of Afghan- 
istan and Persia. Part of its inhabitants live in small 
oases among the barren mountains. The remainder are 
nomads who wander far and wide with their flocks. For- 
merly the Baluchis were great plunderers. Their raids 
were so bad that the Indian government was obliged to 
put a stop to them. Thus it came to pass that Balu- 
chistan passed under the rule of England. 



CHAPTER XII 

TRANSCASPIA AND RUSSIAN TURKISTAN 

The Plains of Northern Asia. Having finished our 
study of Southwestern Asia, we are now ready to begin 
Northern Asia — the land of plains. Russian Turkistan 
and Transcaspia form the southern portion of Northern 
Asia. This part is not very different from northern Persia 
and the other countries which we have studied south of 
the mountains. Like them it is extremely dry. Except 
in the far northeast the rain or snow all comes in spring 
or winter, and the long summer is rainless. Therefore, 
the manner of life of the people resembles that of the 
other lands which we have studied. Water here is 
the most important of all things to farmers, nomads, 
and every sort of people. They talk about it even more 
earnestly than we talk about the weather. If there is 
plenty of water, they prosper; if there is little, they 
starve. All the people are Mohammedans, with the excep- 
tion of a few Russians who have lately come in. It is an 
interesting fact that Mohammedanism is strong only 
in countries that are dry. The Mohammedans of moist 
countries, like some parts of India and China, are not 
greatly devoted to their own religion. On the contrary, 
they carry on many of the practices of the other religions 
around them. 

The Caspian Sea. One way in which to reach Russian 
Turkistan is to sail down the great Volga River in 
Russia, and then take a steamer around the Caspian Sea 
to Krasnovodsk on the east side. First, the great plains of 
Russia are traversed, flat and uninteresting, and a little 



122 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

too dry to be rich like the prairies of the Central West. 
Then the snowy Caucasus Mountains are passed, and the 
ship comes to oily Baku. Here the country is drier than 
to the north, but farther south a change soon appears. 
Winds blowing from the north and northwest across 
the Caspian bring much moisture and deposit it, as we 
have seen, upon the high slopes of the Elburz. So the 
Persian provinces of Ghilan and Mazanderan on the south 
side of the sea are thickly covered with splendid 
forests, and the scenery is as fine as any in the world. 
Along the shore long sand bars inclose still, shallow 
lagoons. Behind them lie the green forested lower 
slopes of the mountains, which, in the far background, 
merge gradually into the dim blue range of the Elburz, 
the snowy tops of which rise two or three miles above 
the sea. Farther around, on the east coast in Russian 
territory, the land again becomes low and very dry, 
drier than any other part of the shore. 

The Transcaspian Railway. At Krasnovodsk the 
steamer goes in behind a long yellow sand spit, and ties up 
at a dock in front of a bare little town made up of low 
white houses. There is not enough water for trees, and 
only the governor and one or two rich people can have 
gardens. Here, as at Baku, most of the vegetables and 
fruit are brought by steamer from the moist southern 
shore. At the railroad station a broad train is waiting. It 
has four kinds of cars, first, second, third, and fourth class. 
First and second-class cars are very comfortable. They 
are used by foreigners, by the richer Russians, and by a 
very few natives. The third-class cars are very crowded, 
and the people who use them are mostly poor Russians 
and ordinary natives. The fourth-class cars look like 
freight cars. They are marked on the outside, "Eight 
horses or forty men." Crowds of Mohammedans, with 



TRANSCASPIA AND RUSSIAN TURKISTAN 123 



big white turbans and long gowns of red, blue, yellow, 
brown, or purple cotton, squeeze into them, with now 
and then a woman bundled up in dark blue or gray cloth. 
Her face is wholly covered, and she can see only through 
a piece of very thick, hot veiling over her eyes. The 
fourth-class cars are divided into two stories, made by 
a floor put through the middle of the low car. Of course 
no one can stand upright. There are no seats. The 
people merely crowd in and sit on either the upper or the 
lower floor on cushions or mattresses which they bring 
with them. In summer it is fearfully hot, and there are 
no windows; but the passengers do not seem to object 




Turkoman soldiers saluting 

even when the cars are very crowded. The fare is the 
lowest in the world, scarcely half a cent a mile. 

By and by a soldier in uniform rings a bell once. The 
newcomer from America hurries to his seat, thinking that 
the train is going to start. The natives, however, do not 
move, except to go off for another cup of tea. After a 
few minutes the soldier rings the bell twice, and people 
take their seats. Then he rings it three times, but 



124 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



the train does not start. A few late comers enter the 
cars, but no one hurries. Next, the conductor blows 





A halt at a station on tJic Transcaspmn Railway. 
man in the foreground is fillmg his teapot luith 
hot water from a samovar 



The 



a little whistle, the engineer blows the big whistle of the 
engine, then the conductor blows the little one again, 
and at last the train begins to move. For a while it runs 
along with the smooth Caspian Sea on the right side and 
high, barren hills on the left. Then, after some hours, 
it comes out upon a dry, bare plain of sand and gravel. 
Now and then the train stops at a little station. There 
is nothing to be seen except a few mulberry and apricot 
trees, a tank for water, another tank for the oil which the 
engine burns, and the small houses where live some Rus- 
sian soldiers and their wives. Half a dozen native Tur- 
komans stand around dressed in long gowns made of red 
silk in narrow stripes. On their feet are low shoes like 
slippers, and on their heads huge grenadier caps of sheep- 
skin, white, black, or brown. Two or three tall, thin 
horses are tied to the station fence; while a few gaunt, 
hairless camels lie on the ground, chewing their cud, and 



TRANSCASPIA AND RUSSIAN TURKISTAN 125 

turning their great heads on every side to see what is 
going on. Often one or two round-cheeked Russian 
women or children stand behind samovars — great 
copper urns of water kept boiUng by charcoal burning 
in a pipe in the middle. At the sight of the steaming 
samovars scores of passengers take the teapots, which 
everyone carries, and hurry out to fill them. They pay 
half a cent or a cent for the hot water, and then come 
back to the train and make tea. The natives drink 
their tea from bowls, and the Russians from glasses. 
Children as well as grown people drink enormous quanti- 
ties. At some of the larger stations there are little 
houses with signs on them saying, "Boiling water." 
The passengers almost fight to get a chance to put 
their teapots under Tthe hot-water faucet. 

Transcaspla: Floods and Sand Dunes. On the second 
day from Krasnovodsk the slow-moving train runs near 
the foot of the mountains of northern Persia. In the dis- 
tance the mountains can be seen several miles away to the 
south, rising in gray or brown slopes to an even crest- 
line. Between them and the railroad lies a sloping plain 
of gravelly deposits brought down by the streams. 
Along the line of the railroad occasional oases are strung 
like beads on a string. On the north side, away from 
the mountains, lies a great sandy desert, the beginning 
of the vast plain which stretches away two thousand 
miles to the Arctic Ocean. 

On the gently sloping plain at the base of the moun- 
tains one notices everywhere low embankments, like 
enormous Y's which have been laid flat upon the ground. 
The stem of each Y points away from the railroad, and 
each branch is half a mile or more in length. Between 
every pair of Y's, there is a bridge. When the streams 
come down from the mountains they carry a very 



126 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

heavy load of sand, gravel, and cobblestones. At the 
foot of the mountains they begin to flow less steeply, 
and so cannot carry so great a load. Therefore, they 
deposit the cobbles and gravel, and block their own 
channels, thus turning the streams into new courses 
across the gently sloping plain. No one can tell when 
the streams will turn, nor in what direction they will go 
in the next flood. They may leave their old channels 
and flow against the railroad, and if there is no bridge 
the track may be washed away. Hence the Russians 
have built the Y's. When a flood comes it must hit 
some part of a Y, no matter where it goes. It is then 
turned aside and follows an embankment to a space 
between two Y's, where there is a bridge. 

The larger rivers cannot be controlled in this way. 
One year in May some Americans wanted to go to 
Samarkand. They reached Ashkabad, and were told 
they would have to wait three weeks till the flood of the 
Heri-Rud or Tejen River was over and the railroad 
rebuilt. When they finally came near the river, the 
train ran for four or five miles along a low embank- 
ment, with water stretching away on every side as far 
as they could see. The flood was not nearly so high as 
it had been, but the country was still like a great lake. 
At length the track came to an end, and they got out on 
a low, flimsy wooden bridge which had just been made. 
It was only wide enough for a plank walk. Beside it 
lay an engine turned over on its side and half buried in 
mud and water. It had gone too far on the track, which 
was undermined by the flood, and had tumbled into the 
water. All the passengers were obliged to walk for half 
a mile across the main part of the river on the bridge of 
plank. At the same time their baggage was carried 
over on the backs of Turkomans and Persians. It is 



WRANSCASPIA AND RUSSIAN TURKISTAN 127 

odd that in so dry a land floods should make the greatest 
of all difficulties for railroads. 

Not many miles beyond the river the railroad meets 
quite another difficulty. Between the oases of Tejen 
and Merv it goes through the driest sort of desert, where 
large piles of dry sand, called dunes, are blown about 
by the wind. Sometimes a strong wind blows the sand 
in thick drifts right over the railroad track, and no 




Tents of nomadic Turkomans pitched in the wind-swept desert 

trains can run until it has been shoveled off. It seems 
as if it would be easy to prevent this, but it is not. The 
only thing that seems to do any good is to cultivate 
certain desert bushes along the sides of the road. It is 
very hard, however, to get them started; and even if 
this can be done they grow very slowly, because they 
can get so little water. 

The Turkomans of the Desert. In the early spring 
the sandy desert is beautiful. A little rain falls during 
the last part of the winter, and in April a great deal of 



128 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

grass springs up. Then the Turkomans rejoice. They 
go out with their camels, sheep, and horses far into the 




Turkomans in the desert drawing water from a well 
for their -flocks 

sand and camp for a month or two beside deep wells. 
Day by day the flocks are driven out to feed on the rich 
grass, and every night are brought back to the wells to 
be watered. For hours a nomad boy or girl stands by 
each well, letting down a sheepskin bag by means of a 
long rope running on a little wooden pulley. All over 
the desert at intervals of from five to twenty miles there 
are wells. Often the Turkomans dig eight or ten wells 
close together. The first one is dug to a depth of per- 
haps a hundred feet, and when water is found it may 
prove too salty for drinking purposes. However, the 
Turkomans do not give up. They dig first one well and 
then another, and at last get one which has water that 
can be drunk. 

During the thirty years or more since the coming 
of the Russians and the building of the railroad the 



I 



TRANSCASPIA AND RUSSIAN TURKISTAN 129 

Turkomans have wholly changed their way of living. In 
the old days most of them were nomads. Now a large 
part of them have settled down in the fertile oases, 
because new ways of irrigation have made it possible 
for many more people to live there, and because the 
coming of the railroad has made new opportunities for 
them to work and earn a living. 

Before the days of the Russians the Turkomans used 
to be very much like the Arabs. They belong to a 
wholly different race, but because they lived in the same 
kind of desert they acquired the same habits. When they 
were hungry or restless, some Turkoman would set up 
his spear in the ground and say, "After two days I am 
going on a raid in Persia. Who will go wath me?" 
Then the young men and some of the older ones would 
gather, and a company of twenty or thirty start out. 
On their thin, tough horses they might ride a hun- 
dred miles in a single day. Suddenly they would appear 
near a Persian village at sunset, when the villagers were 
coming home from the fields. The poor Persians would 
run to the mud towers which dot their fields, but many 
could not get to them. These the Turkomans seized. 
In the village they stole whatever they could find and 
then set on fire the straw at the threshing floors. They 
could not burn the houses, because those are built of 
mud. Taking the men, women, and children whom they 
had captured, they tied their hands together and drove 
them off at the point of the spear, compelling the cap- 
tives to walk for many days. Many of them were sold 
to merchants and to others in the rich oases of Merv, 
Khiva, and Bukhara. 

Now all this raiding and stealing has come to an end ; 
but when hard times come, the Turkomans begin to 
say, "We must go and plunder the Persians. Why 



I30 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



do the Russians not let us do it? How are we going to 
get food for our families if we cannot rob our enemies?'* 




The home of a Russian official in the oasis of Merv 

Locusts. In Russian Turkistan, as in all dry countries, 
grasshoppers of the kind called locusts often devour the 
crops. In April the eggs begin to hatch. Here and 
there little black spots appear, swarming with thousands 
of tiny grasshoppers no bigger than the point of a lead 
pencil. Little by little the spots spread, as the grass- 
hoppers grow bigger. Often the people try to kill the 
insects, but cannot because there are so many. After 
a few weeks the whole country is spotted with round bare 
patches where the locusts have eaten up all the fresh 
spring grass. Then there comes a day when the 
insects begin to move, for they have grown large quickly, 
and are very hungry. 

Straight away they go, stopping for nothing, and 
always hopping forward in the same direction. If they 
come to a ditch, they jump in. The people therefore 



TRANSCASPIA AND RUSSIAN TURKISTAN 131 

dig ditches, and in this way the^^ catch many and bury 
them. But the others keep on. If the locusts come 
to a brook flowing to a little oasis, they jump in. Many 
are drowned, but many more swim across and, as soon as 
their wings become dry, press onward. They come like a 
vast moving army, hopping, hopping, hopping. When 
they reach a tent they never think of turning aside, but 
crawl right up the sides; and if the round top is open 
they tumble down inside, and, turning in the right direc- 
tion, go on again. 

Behind them there is nothing left except bare, brown 
earth and a few tough stalks. All the grain, the leaves 
of the trees, and everything else that is green, is 
eaten up. The poor Turkomans wring their hands, but 
can do nothing. Their only hope is that the starlings — 
large birds with black wings and rosy breasts — may come 
and eat up the locusts before everything is gone and the 
people are left to starve. . 

The Great Oases of Russian Turkistan. East of Trans- 
caspia and the sandy desert the mountains to the south, 
in Afghanistan and the Pamirs, grow higher and the 
rivers larger. Therefore, the oases become richer, more 
fruitful, and more densely populated. The city of 
Samarkand occupies a typical oasis of Russian central 
Asia. The railroad station is far from the town. There 
are no street cars, but carriages can be hired very cheaply. 
One horse, with a great w^ooden arch over his back, is 
in the shafts, and another is fastened loosely to the 
carriage, outside the shafts. The drivers are mostly 
Russians, who wear high hats with ridiculously small 
brims, and long, smooth coats, and high boots. In 
private carriages the coachmen are always very fat, for 
that is the fashion. Sometimes one meets a coachman 
with a very thin, small face and a huge round body. He 



132 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



appears to be fat, but this is because his clothes are 
stuffed to make him look big. 

-The streets are wide, and are lined on each side with 
a double row of poplar trees growing beside two muddy- 
irrigation ditches. Half-naked men, with buckets or 
shovels, take water from the ditches and throw it over 
the street to lay the dust. Where the streets are not 
watered the dust is often three or four inches deep. 
When many people are passing, it is sometimes so thick 
that the voices of people who are walking along can be 
heard before the people themselves can be seen through 




A scene in the streets of Samarkand 

the veil of dust which hangs over the street, A mile or 
two from the railroad one comes into the Russian city. 
This is quite attractive, with its broad clean streets, its 
many trees, its whitewashed fences of mud, and its low 
one-story houses. The houses, like the fences, are white- 
washed and often have roofs covered with red tiles. 
Every Russian house in the town is surrounded by a 
large garden full of fruit trees and tall poplars. 

A little way from the new Russian city one comes 



TRANSCASPIA AND RUSSIAN TURKISTAN 133 

to the old native city. It is wholly different. The 
streets are very narrow, and there are no trees. On 
either side of the dusty road nothing can be seen except 
bare mud walls with little doors every fifty feet or so. 
Over the tops of the walls branches of fruit trees can 
be seen, and one knows that pleasant gardens are hidden 
behind the ugly walls. The streets are full of people. 
The men wear the most bright-colored dresses that 
can be imagined — pale blue, yellow, green, and purple. 
Many of them are clad in silk, and often a single gown 
has many colors. Sometimes one sees a man, on a 
donkey, dressed in a bright red gown with huge round, 
yellow spots on it, the biggest spot of all being in the 
middle of the man's back. In the streets the women, 
like those of other Mohammedan countries, have to wear 
very dull, homely clothes, although at home they, too, 
wear bright-colored silks. 

It is not expensive to wear silk in Russian Turkistan. 
Partly because wages are low and partly because mul- 
berry trees grow in great abundance in all the oases, silk 
is cheap. In May and June people eat the mulberries, 
and beggars often camp for weeks under the trees and 
actually live on nothing else. Yet this is not the chief 
use of the mulberry trees, for their leaves are the only 
good food for silkworms. Thousands and millions of 
these worms are raised, and the whole city is full of little 
factories where silk thread is being wound off from 
cocoons. The silk not used at home is exported to other 
lands, as is also cotton. The best cotton seed comes from 
America. So the natives think that every American 
must know all about how to raise cotton. 

The streets of Samarkand abound not only in bazaars 
with little shops like those of Persia, but also in wonder- 
ful old mosques and tombs built by the famous Tartar 



134 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



conqueror, Timour the Lame, and his successors. These 
men once ruled a great empire, with Samarkand as its 




-4 sJiop in Samarkand 

capital. It is hard for us to realize how great a country 
Russian Turkistan is. It is almost half as large as 
the United States ; and yet it is only a small part of the 
whole of Russia's possessions in Asia. Its area is equal 
to that of the three states of the Pacific coast, the eight 
Plateau states, and the states of North Dakota, South 
Dakota, and Nebraska. The population is as great as 
that of all these fourteen states, with the addition of 
Minnesota and Kansas. To put it in another way, the 
area and population of Russian Turkistan are greater 
than the area and population of the United States west 
of the looth meridian. From the Caspian Sea the 
country stretches eastward 1,700 miles, or nearly as far 
as from Chicago to San Francisco, 




Ui-ioil apnttivj W 



1B4 




AREAS OF NATURAL VEGETATION 

Scale 



1000 Statute Miles to one inch 
CD Tundra and mountain flora (ZH OraaalanUs and scrub Umbe 

im Forests attd grasslands . @J forests and grasslands. 

Subtropical Zone Temperate Zone 

(UJ Tropical /treat a l~~} Deserts 



.^yorthern limit of cereals^ 4 .^^ Northern limit of the pal m\\ k'/ A /^\^ rt T t 



Approximnte northern limit of the vine 



Longitude Eastfyom Orcenn-irh 



A reas of m ml 



I 




Copyright, 1912, by Band McKally £■ Company 



igetation 



CHAPTER XIII 

SIBERIA: THE MOST AMERICAN COUNTRY 
IN ASIA 

Siberian Pioneers. Among the countries of Asia 
Siberia is the one that most resembles America. 
Little by little, during the past two or three hundred 
years, the people of Russia have crossed the Ural 
Mountains and spread out over the broad plains of 
Siberia, just as the people of America crossed the 
Appalachians and spread out over the great plains of 
the United States and Canada. The earliest American 
pioneers were hunters and trappers, and so were those 
of Siberia. In the great forests of the Appalachian 
Highland and of the country extending from there far to 
the northwest into Canada, the chief source of wealth, at 
first, was the fur of the bear, beaver, mink, and many 
other animals. The Indians, and later the white men, 
caught or shot the animals and sent their skins to the 
more thickly settled regions east of the Appalachians, 
from which they were shipped to Europe. In the same 
way the far larger forests of Siberia tempted Russian 
adventurers to wander among them, seeking the fur of 
the sable, ermine, fox, and other animals. 

The Siberian pioneers fought with the Tartars, Yakuts, 
Buriats, and other aboriginal peoples, just as the Ameri- 
cans fought with the Indians. Some of them treated 
the natives fairly and honestly. Others taught them 
to drink vodka, or whisky, and then sold them a dollar's 
worth of the stuff for twenty dollars' worth of furs, even 
as some of our countrymen did. The natives felt that 
they were being cheated and that their land was being 

135 



136 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

taken from them; and so they, on their side, massacred 
the white men, lied to them, and betrayed them, after 
solemnly promising to be friends. 

The Settlement of Siberia from Russia. When the 
rough trappers and hunters had explored the country, 
other people began to come in to settle permanently. 
Many of them were exiles, or people whom the govern- 
ment sent away from Russia because they had been 
accused of crime. Some of the exiles were really bad 
men, who would have been put in prison, or even hanged, 
if they had lived in America. Others were the very 
best sort of men and women, useful people whom it was 
a bitter shame to send out into the wilderness. The bad 
exiles often lived by robbing and oppressing the natives. 
The good exiles would not do this, and as there was no 
work, they suffered great hardships, especially from 
cold, poverty, and hunger. They were reformers who 
wanted to improve the government of Russia, which was 
then very oppressive. Therefore, the rulers did not like 
them, and sent them as far away as possible into the 
worst places they could hear of. 

Besides the criminals and the political exiles, as the 
reformers are called, there were many people who went 
to Siberia of their own accord. Part of these were 
dissenters, or people who did not believe in the national 
church of Russia. They wanted to worship in their own 
particular way. When they were not allowed to do 
this, they moved to Siberia and settled in out-of-the-way 
places, where the ofhcials could scarcely find them. The 
remainder of the people who went of their own accord 
were regular settlers. They thought that they could 
make a better living by going to Siberia. When there 
were famines in Russia, as there often are when the rain 
fails in the dry southeast, the peasants began to talk of 



SIBERIA: MOST AMERICAN COUNTRY IN ASIA 137 

settling in Siberia, where they heard that there was 
plenty of well-watered land. At first there were few 
such settlers, but now they go in large numbers. Many 
are helped by the government, which is very anxious 
to have Siberia well filled with people. Some of them 
do not have to pay taxes for a certain number of years, 
and others receive help in money. Because of these 
things the population of Siberia is now growing rapidly. 
It is not yet very dense, however. On an average, there 
are scarcely two persons for every square mile, while in 
the United States there are forty. 

What the Future Promises. Enthusiastic Russians 
believe that after one or two centuries the two greatest 
nations of the world will be those that inhabit the two 
great northern plains. In the Western Hemisphere, they 
say, there will be a great nation occupying the plains of 
the northern United States and Canada. It may be 
divided politically, but the people of both parts are of 
the same race. In the Eastern Hemisphere there will 
be a great nation having its home in the vast plains of 
Russia and Siberia. Of course no one can tell exactly 
what will happen; but it is certainly true that Siberia 
and the northern part of America are the only two large 
regions of the earth which are cool enough for the white 
race and are not yet filled with people. They are the 
countries which have the greatest opportunity to develop. 
In the past two or three hundred years the histories 
of the two have been much alike, although their institu- 
tions differ widely. To-day America is ahead of Siberia. 
This is partly because its early settlers, instead of being 
exiles and criminals, were some of the most enlightened 
people in the world, and established a government under 
which every man is free to do his best. It is also 
partly because the great American plains extend farther 



138 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

south than those of Asia and have a less severe climate. 

The Resources of Siberia. As we have seen so many 
times, the way people live in any country depends on 
many factors. Let us see which of these are the most 
important in Siberia. One factor is the nature of the 
surface of a country, that is, its mountains, plains, hills, 
and valle^^s. Except in the far south and in the east, 
Siberia consists wholly of plains and low hills ; so if this 
factor were the only one that made a difference the 
people would live in almost the same way in all parts. 

Another thing is the relation of a country to the 
sea and to harbors. The shore of the Arctic Ocean 
is so cold that very few people live there. Ships cannot 
reach the coast, and there is no trade. On the Pacific 
coast all the northern shore is also too cold to be of 
use. Even as far south as the mouth of the Amur 
River the harbors are completely frozen for six months 
every year. It is only on the Manchurian coast that 
the harbors are open long enough to be of much use 
for commerce. Therefore the sea, like the mountains, 
has very little positive effect on most of the people of 
Siberia. 

A third thing which influences the way in which people 
live is the nature of the soil and the presence of minerals. 
The plains of Siberia have almost the same sort of soil 
in all parts. The soil is rich and capable of producing 
fine crops, and the only important variations are due 
to climate. In plains no one expects to find valuable 
minerals. Generally the rocks are not of the kinds 
which have been twisted and folded and broken, and 
therefore filled with veins of metals. Moreover, they 
have not been arched up so that the minerals are 
exposed on the sides of the valleys. Outside of the 
famous Ural Range the mountains on the south and 



SIBERIA: MOST AMERICAN COUNTRY IN ASIA 139 

east of Siberia are the only parts of the country where 
minerals are important. In those regions there are large 
deposits of gold, iron, and other metals. They are mined 
a little, but in many places they are scarcely used at all. 
One traveler says that a few years ago he met a long 
string of camels carrying iron made in Europe to a place 
in southeastern Siberia where there were large iron 
mines. The people did not use their ow^n iron, but paid 
enormous freight charges to have iron brought by rail 
and caravan. 

The two other important things which have much 
influence on the way in w^hich people live are climate 
and the means of communication. In Siberia these two 
are far more important than the others. 

The Effect of a Dry Climate in Transcaspia. From 
south to north the climate of Asiatic Russia grows 
steadily colder and more moist. In the far south the 
driest, warmest place in Russian territory is the desert 
of Transcaspia. It is very cold in winter, but the 
summers are terribly hot. An American once rode into 
the Transcaspian desert with a Turkoman in June. At 
the end of the first day the Turkoman said, 'T did not 
know it was going to be so hot. I wish I had brought 
my heavy coat." He meant exactly what he said. The 
sun was so hot that it beat through his thin coat and 
made him uncomfortable. A very heavy coat would 
have been better to keep out the sun's heat. For the 
same reason the Arabs, as we have seen, bundle up their 
heads. 

Transcaspia is so dry that there are not plants enough 
to hold the soil in place. Therefore, the finer parts 
have been blown away as dust, and only the sand is left, 
piled up in big dunes. 

The Turkomans are so used to sand that they think 



I40 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

they need it. Some Turkomans who were traveHng in 
eastern Persia, where the whole country is covered with 
gravel, came one night to a salty brook beside which 
v/as a little patch of sand. "Look," said one of them, 
"here is some sand. To-night we can have good bread." 
They made a fire on the sand and while it was burning 
they kneaded some dough. When all was ready, one 
man made the dough into two flat, round sheets, 
nearly eighteen inches in diameter and half an inch 
thick. Between these he put a great many lumps of 
fat from the big tail of a sheep. Another Turkoman, 
meanwhile, raked away the fire and smoothed off the 
hot sand under it. The double sheet of dough, like a 
big sandwich, was placed on the sand, and then more 
hot sand and the coals of the fire were placed on top of 
it. After fifteen or twenty minutes one of the men 
brushed off the coals and tapped the bread to see if it 
was done. Then he turned it over and covered it up 
again. AVhen it was cooked and ready to eat there 
were many ashes in it, but it tasted very good to the 
Turkomans. 

"How much better our way of cooking is than the 
Afghan way," said one. Many of the Afghans heat a 
round stone the size of a man's fist and, when this 
is hot, pull it out of the fire and wrap dough around 
it to the thickness of half an inch. It is then put in the 
hot ashes once more until the dough is baked. Both 
Afghans and Turkomans use the things which they have 
around them. The Turkoman's way of cooking, like all 
his ways of living, is greatly influenced by the dry 
climate of his plains. 

The Effect of Climate in the Steppes. A little farther 
north in Asiatic Russia the plains become colder and a 
little more moist than in Transcaspia. In this region of 



SIBERIA: MOST AMERICAN COUNTRY IN ASIA 141 

the Kirghiz Steppe, as it is called, there is not enough 
rain to allow trees to grow except close to the rivers. 
Neither is there enough rain to make farming profitable. 
So the Kirghiz and other Tartar tribes are pastoral 
nomads, who live part of the time in tents and part of 
the time in houses made of mud and wood. In winter 
they stay in the houses; in summer they travel from 
place to place with their animals and live in tents. 
They have a few camels and cows, but most of their 
wealth consists of small horses and sheep of various 




The home of Russian colonists in the Siberia) i plains 

colors. Their life is much like that of the people of the 
plateaus, whom we shall describe later. 

The Effect of Climate in Central Siberia : The Wheat 
Fields and the Colonists. In the northern part of the 
Kirghiz Steppe the amount of rain increases, and more 
falls in summer than is the case farther south. There- 
fore, trees begin to appear in groups at a distance from 
the rivers. Soon, if one keeps on to the north, a beautiful 
park-like country is reached. Broad fields of grass, like 



142 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

our prairies, are mingled with groves of cedar, pine, and 
birch. Villages are scattered at intervals of five or ten 
miles. They are the homes of Russian colonists who 
have come here because this is the best part of Siberia. 
The houses are low, thatched cabins made of logs, and 
banked up with sod around the bottoms to keep the 
wind out. The windows are small, and during the cold 
winters are often sealed up with paper to keep out every 
possible bit of air. Near each village stand great piles 
of brown hay, w^hich is fed to the cattle in winter. The 
colonists raise wheat and other grains and vegetables, 
and are quite prosperous. At sunset of a summer day 
it is a very pretty sight to see the women and girls 
in bright red or blue dresses and the men in colored 
shirts, which are worn like coats belted at the waist and 
hanging down outside the loose trousers. Often on a 
Sunday afternoon one may see the boys of a village 
gathered on one side of the road and the girls in their 
bright dresses on the other. Sunday morning everyone 
goes to church in a large white building with a green 
dome. The priest always wears a long gown, and allows 
his hair to grow long over his shoulders and down his 
back. At their services the Russians do not sit down, 
as we do. There is not a seat in the whole church. 
Everyone stands, the men and boys usually on one side 
and the women and girls on the other. Often the audi- 
ence stands two hours or more without seeming to grow 
tired. The Russians are a very reverent people. 

Siberian Towns and the Siberian Railway. Naturally 
the chief towns of Siberia, such as Omsk, Tomsk, and 
Irkutsk, have grown up in this fertile region where grain 
grows bountifully and where the climate is just right 
for Russians. These cities seem very much like the 
cities of western America. They are new and full of 



SIBERIA: MOST AMERICAN COUNTRY IN ASIA 143 



energy. Business is booming; new houses are going up 
very fast; factories are beginning to be built; and 
schools, colleges, museums, theaters, libraries, and all 
the various signs of high civilization are fast appearing. 
The Siberians are wonderfully hospitable and make a 
stranger feel much at home. 

When the time came for a railroad to be built from 
Russia to the Pacific Ocean, it naturally was located along 
the broad belt of fertile wheat-raising country, where the 
chief towns are situated. The trains do not run fast, but 
they are comfortable and the fare is low. The cars are 
divided into compartments about six feet wide. In each 
compartment there are two seats, about seven feet long, 
facing each other. At the end of the compartment 
a door opens into a narrow corridor running the length 
of the car. At night a sort of shelf, like the upper 
berth of a sleeping car, is let down over each seat, so that 




Russian girls dressed for a wedding 



144 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

four people can sleep comfortably in a compartment. 
When a well-to-do Russian travels, he carries his own 
sheets, towels, pillow, and soap with him. If he is going 
on a winter journey, he also has his blankets. So he 
can be very comfortable on the train, even if he has 
to travel the two weeks' journey from St. Petersburg to 
the Pacific Ocean. The chief defect of Russian cars is 
that the windows are small and hard to open. They 
are made so purposely, because of the intense cold 
of Siberian winters. However, the cars are well warmed. 
Forests are so abundant in central Siberia that wood 
is far cheaper than coal for use in the engines. It is 
for this reason that for miles beside the track great 
piles of birch wood cut into short lengths are stacked 
in white rows. 

The Solemn Forests of the North. Most of the great 
wheat-raising belt of Siberia was, and still is, covered 
with forests which grow more and more dense farther 
north. The main forest belt is from a thousand to 
thirteen hundred miles wide from north to south, and 
extends all the way across from west to east. It covers 
almost as much ground as the whole of the United States. 
Those who have not seen the virgin forest find it hard 
to realize its vastness and its somber gloom. In the 
United States our largest forests are broken by clearings 
and villages, and are crossed by roads and railroads. 
They are under the control of man. In Siberia no human 
hand controls the mighty woodland. Dark and forbid- 
ding, it stretches away for hundreds and thousands 
of miles. Day after day, and week after week, one may 
wander in it without seeing a sign of human dwellings 
or any living creature except wild animals or, perhaps, 
a Tungus or Ostyak native roaming in search of game 
the skins of which he may sell. The forest is so vast, 



SIBERIA: MOST AMERICAN COUNTRY IN ASIA 145 

SO silent, so hostile to man that the wanderer grows 
sad and timid. There seems to be no end to the vast 
extent of towering trees, and no hope of ever getting 
out into the open air and the sunshine. 

The Tundras. In the far north the somber forest grows 
small and stunted, until finally, near the Arctic Circle, it 
is replaced by the barren tundras described in the 
first chapter. There the natives live on the milk 
of the reindeer and on the animals which they kill. If 
the reindeer die or the people have to sell them for food, 
the only other way they can make a living is to fish and 
hunt. Some of the natives go regularly from place to 
place, according to the season, following the fish. In 
summer the fish come up into the rivers to lay their eggs, 
and then the natives catch them in large quantities. 

The Temperature of Northern Siberia. It is frightfully 
cold in these far northern regions with their short sum- 
mers and long winters. A Swedish traveler says that the 
year he was there the real winter began, at the mouth of 
the Lena, on September 23, with a temperature of 15° 
below zero Fahrenheit. Before that it was very^cold, but 
people did not call it winter. Yakutsk and Verkhoyansk, 
where the winter temperature is the lowest on record, 
are not at the extreme north, but 300 and 700 miles 
south of the Arctic Ocean in the forest belt. In winter, 
at Verkhoyansk, the temperature has been known to 
go down to 90° below zero ; and in summer it sometimes 
rises to 90° above. At Yakutsk it goes down to 84° 
below and up to 102° above. In these places the ground, 
two feet or so below the surface, is frozen all the time. 
Crops of many kinds, including even watermelons, grow 
with their roots running down almost to the frozen part. 
In Yakutsk buildings are not set on a foundation of 
rock, but on one of frozen earth. 



146 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



Although the Arctic Ocean is extremely cold, it is 
warmer than the land to the south of it, for not only 
does the ocean keep its heat better than land, but also 
the water of warm seas mingles with that of those that 
are cooler. Inasmuch as winds warmed by the Arctic 
Ocean blow in over northern Asia, the tundras are not 
so cold in winter as is the northeastern interior of 
Siberia.. They are much colder than the interior in 
summer, however, and in winter they are far more 
disagreeable because they have terrific storms, while in 




Kirghiz drivers of a Russian post wagon making ready 

for a journey 

the interior, at Yakutsk and elsewhere, the winter air is 
almost perfectly still, and there are few clouds and 
not much snow. 

Transportation in Siberia. All the various kinds of 
country which we have spoken of, from Transcaspia to 
the tundras, owe their differences chiefly to climate. 
Let us see now what effect the climate and the character 
of the plains and of the plants which grow upon them 
have had upon transportation. In the south, where 
the plains are open and grassy, horses and camels are 



SIBERIA: MOST AMERICAN COUNTRY IN ASIA 147 

abundant and cheap. There is very little need of build- 
ing roads, for all parts of the plain can be traversed 
easily. Accordingly, most of the trade is carried on by 
means of caravans. Often hundreds of camels loaded 
with tea, wool, and other products are tied one behind 
the other and led from China or Turkistan into the 
southern part of Siberia. In other places loads are put 
on the backs of horses and carried in the same way. 
Already a few main wagon roads have been built in this 
region, and wagons are taking the place of caravans. 
Soon there will be raili'oads, but in the country regions 
among the nomads it is probable that caravans will be 
used for very many years, because animals can be fed 
so cheaply, and the population is not sufficient to cause 
much commerce. 

A Russian Post Wagon. In the wheat-raising part of 
Siberia, as we have seen, a railroad has been built, 
while on every side post roads branch off to the remoter 
towns. The first day in a Russian post wagon is great 
fun. If the traveler has much baggage, he must take a 
"tarantas" — a vehicle like a small hay wagon with low 
sides made of boards. In front there is a seat for the 
driver, and at the back a cover like a large buggy top 
to cover the passengers. After the baggage has been 
strapped on behind or placed in the front of the taran- 
tas, some hay is put in the bottom of the wagon, 
and blankets and pillows and other soft things are laid 
over the top. On these the traveler sits or, more often, 
half lies down. 

When all is ready the horses are led out. The best- 
trained animal is put into the heavy spreading shafts 
under a wooden arch on which hangs a jingling bell. 
Then two other horses are fastened by loose traces on 
either side, outside the shafts. Often the outer horses 



148 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

are only half trained. When the attendants let go of 
the animals' heads they dash off at a gallop, and if the 




Arriving at a post station in Siberia 

driver is not ready with the reins firmly in his hands, 
they are likely to tip the wagon over. Sometimes, if the 
horses are young or only half trained, they gallop madly 
for a mile or two. Occasionally in the open plain they 
run off the road and go circling over the fields, but at 
last they become a little tired and settle down to a 
steady trot or a slow gallop. While all this is happening 
the passenger is bumping around under the wagon top. 
After riding from twelve to twenty miles the driver pulls 
up at a low, whitewashed house with a striped pole in 
front of it. It is the post station. Sometimes it is in a 
village; but often it stands alone in the midst of the 
plain or the forest. 

When the traveler climbs out, he is likely to be a 
little stiff and sore, unless the road has been unusually 
smooth. The station keeper comes out, wearing a 
military cap with a sort of button on the front of it. 



SIBERIA: MOST AMERICAN COUNTRY IN ASIA 149 

Every one who does any. work for the government wears 
an official cap of some kind, sometimes with a uniform 
and sometimes without. From the color and shape 
of the cap and the marks on the button one can tell 
exactly what work a man does. If the traveler is in a 
hurry, he asks to have horses brought at once. Some- 
times the station-keeper says, "All right," and at once 
sends off a boy to catch some animals. At other times 
he says, "I guess you will have to wait awhile. It is 
time for the mail in two hours. I don't know whether 
it will come in two wagons or in three or four. I can't 
send off the horses with you, because they might be 
needed for the mail. If I did not have them here for 
that I should lose my place." 

While the horses are being brought the traveler buys 
something to eat. If he chooses to wait, the wife of the 
station keeper will prepare some meat and potatoes 
and a soup full of meat and cabbage, called "shtchee^" 
If he is in a great hurry, he must be content with eggs, 
milk, bread, and tea. Russians are tremendously hungry 
people. Unless the traveler says exactly how many 
boiled eggs he wants, the landlady will always bring him 
five, and expect him to eat them all. Often a man says, 
"Give me two fives," and she brings ten eggs. 

If one wants to travel night and day he can do so, 
and can go nearly two hundred miles in twenty-four 
hours if he does not have to wait for the post. It is very 
hard work, because it is impossible to sleep in the 
jolting wagon. After a few days of it one feels half 
asleep all the time, and keeps dozing off only to be 
awakened by the next bump. The Russian post system 
is wonderfully well managed. It could have developed 

' The word is pronounced almost like the italicized letters in 
the words smasht china. 



150 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

only in a very large country of plains, where horses were 
cheap and great distances had to be traveled. In winter 
sleighs are used, and the horses go very fast indeed. 
Sometimes it is so cold that once in half an hour the 
driver must get out and knock the ice away from the 
horses' noses, where the moisture from their breath 
has frozen. If he did not, the ice would stop up their 
nostrils and they could not breathe. 

Siberian Rivers. Besides the caravans, the railroads, 
and the post wagons, there is one other very important 
means of travel — the rivers. To-day large steamers run 
on them all summer when there is no ice. In the old 
days, when explorers came to the country, they found 
it impossible to travel through the forests. They and 
the settlers who followed them had to use the rivers; 
and even to-day in the north it is only by sailing along 
the rivers that one can reach many parts of the country. 
The explorers were obliged to zig-zag greatly when they 
wanted to go east, for the rivers all flow more or less 
directly north. Starting on one river near the Ural 
Mountains, they floated down to the main stream in 
a northeast direction. Then they went up or down the 
main river until they found another large stream coming 
in on the east side. Up this stream they rowed and 
paddled their boats and rafts. Where the streams flowed 
gently this was easy, and most of the streams do flow 
gently for hundreds of miles in their lower courses; for 
Siberia is very flat. Near their sources, where they flow 
among the highlands, they run swiftly over rapids and 
are of small size. In these places the pioneers, day after 
day, had to get out and wade and pull their boats behind 
them. Coming at last to the head of a stream, they 
carried everything except the boats over the low divide 
to another stream flowing to the next great river. It 
/ 



SIBERIA: MOST AMERICAN CQUNTRY IN ASIA 151 

was impossible to carry the boats, and new ones had 
to be made. Sometimes, after making boats or rafts on 
two or three rivers, the pioneers had no nails left, and 
were obliged to make boats entirel}^ of wood, using 
wooden pegs for nails. On the branches of the Lena 
River there are still boats of this kind. On the main 
rivers, however, good sized steamers run regularly during 
the summer season of open water. 

Wherever one goes in Siberia, he feels that it is a 
country of enormous size. He notices, too, how cold it 
is, for even in summer he can see the signs of winter. 
All the time he feels that it is as yet but partially 
developed but that it is growing, and that some day it 
will be very different from what it is to-day. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE PLATEAUS OF INNER ASIA 

The Natural Divisions of Eastern Asia. In our study 
of the geography of Asia we have now come to the 
great eastern division, the dense population of which 
comprises more than half the people of the continent. 
Eastern Asia, it will be remembered, is bounded on the 
southwest by the Himalaya and Burmese mountains, 
which separate it from India. On the northwest it is 
bounded by the mountains which run from the Pamirs 
to the Sea of Okhotsk. These separate Russia from 
China, except to the north of Manchuria, where Russia has 
forced her way over the Stanovoi Mountains to the sea. 
A careful study of the physical map shows that Eastern 
Asia is divided into two very different parts by the 
Great Khingan Range and other mountains, which form 
a fairly continuous line running south and southwest 
from near the Sea of Okhotsk to the eastern end 
of the Tibetan Plateau and along the broken edge of 
the plateau almost to Siam. The region east of the 
mountains is the Pacific Slope, and the region to 
the west is Inner Asia. 

The Populous Pacific Slope of Asia. The Pacific Slope 
consists of a strip of country from three hundred to one 
thousand miles wide and more than three thousand 
miles long, extending from the Sea of Okhotsk to the 
Gulf of Siam. It is a beautiful region of mountains and 
low hills, with large fertile plains at frequent intervals. 
Winds from the Pacific Ocean blow over it in summer, 
bringing abundant rain and making it very fruitful. 
Therefore, except in the cold northern parts, it is densely 

152 



THE PLATEAUS OF INNER ASIA 153 

inhabited, and contains practically all the people of 
Eastern Asia, or one-third of the people of the world. 

It is divided into various parts by natural boundaries. 
In the north lie the countries of Manchuria and Chosen 
(Korea), with Japan separated from them by the 
sea. The large central portion forms what is known 
as China Proper — the ' ' Flowery Kingdom of the 
Eighteen Provinces," as the Chinese call it. The warm 
southern portion is divided into French Indo-China and 
Siam. In all these places the people are alike in raany 
ways, just as are the people of all the chief countries 
of Europe. Chinese influence can be seen in the 
customs of all parts. In climate and scenery and 
in man}^ other ways, the Pacific Slope of Asia is much 
like the Atlantic Slope of North America from the 
St. Lawrence River to the Gulf of Mexico, including 
the Atlantic Plain and the Appalachian Highland. 
Similarly, as we have seen, the plains of Siberia are like 
the plains of America. 

The Khingan Escarpment and Inner Asia. The east- 
ern slope of the Great Khingan Mountains and of their 
southwestern continuation rises steeply, and is often 
covered with trees nourished by rain brought by winds 
from the Pacific Ocean. The western slope is more gentle 
and much shorter, and is dry and bare. It does not lead 
down to fruitful plains or beautiful valleys, but to a 
naked plateau high above the level of the sea. The Great 
Khingan Mountains ought not to be called mountains, 
for they are mountainous only on one side. Really, 
they are what is called an escarpment — a great step 
between a plateau and a lowland. Many rivers flow 
across the escarpment. In the course of thousands of 
years they have cut valleys in it, but these valleys are 
very narrow. Often they are canyons in which the 



154 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

rivers, .n their steep descent from the plateau to the 
lowland, plunge over frequent rapids, up which boats 
cannot ascend. Therefore, it is much harder to reach the 
center of Asia than to reach the center of North America,- 
where the Mississippi River and its tributaries have no 
rapids except close to the sources. 

Away from the river valleys it is often hard to climb 
the eastern side of the Khingan Escarpment. This, like 
the rapids, tends to keep the Pacific Slope and Inner 
Asia somewhat separate from each other. There is an- 
other, and still more important, condition which divides 
the two regions. The winds coming from the Pacific 
Ocean have given up a large part of their moisture before 
they reach the escarpment. There they rise rather 
suddenly and give up most of the remainder. Accord- 
ingly, when they descend to the plateaus on the other 
side, they are very dry. The same thing happens where 
the winds cross the other mountainous borders of Inner 
Asia. Therefore, the whole country is parched, except 
in a few especially high districts, and the habits of the 
people are not like those prevailing on the Pacific Slope. 

Tibet. Inner Asia consists largely of plateaus, but 
there are also some great basins. The highest of the 
plateaus is Tibet. In this high country, from two to 
three miles above the sea, the winters are very cold, and 
even in summer the nights are sometimes frosty. Tibet 
is so high and cold that much of it consists of great gravel 
plains, where nothing grows except a few bits of grass. 
Little rain falls here, for the air has lost its moisture 
by the time it gets across the mountains. The country 
is bare, bleak, and open, with snowy mountains and 
clear blue lakes on every side. In slightly lower regions 
there is more grass, upon which sheep and yaks may feed, 
and here the people live a nomadic life, like the Kirghiz 



THE PLATEAUS OF INNER ASIA 



155 



of the high plateaus farther north. In a few low valleys 
crops can be raised, and there the people live in perma- 




Tibetans living in a valley which is almost as. high as the 
top of Pikes Peak 

nent villages composed of flat-roofed houses with rude 
stone walls. ' Tibet is as large as the United States east 
of the Mississippi River and north of Tennessee ; but it 
has only about one-thirtieth as many people, and proba- 
bly never will have many more than it now has. 

The Tibetans are a simple, friendly people. Life is 
hard among them, but they are the most cheerful people 
imaginable. Dressed in sheepskins or long woolen coats 
and wearing sheepskin hats with earlaps, they do not 
mind the cold. Now and again a man is seen clad in 
reddish-purple, from warm cap to boots. He is a lama, 
or Buddhist monk. One son from every family is expected 
to be a monk. In each village there is supposed to be a 



156 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



lamasery — a queer place full of images of Buddha and 
the saints, and hung with all manner of gaudy banners. 




Tibetan officials traveling on horseback 

Tibet is such a poor country that it cannot support any 
more people. If many children were born and the 
number of people increased, there would not be food 
enough for all. Therefore, many Tibetans do not 
marry, but become monks and nuns. Among those 
who marry there is a custom quite unlike that of other 
places. Elsewhere in Asia it is common for a man to 
have two or more wives. Among the Tibetans one 
woman often marries all the brothers of a family. 

Mongolia. Another of the plateaus of Inner Asia is 
Mongolia. It is even larger than Tibet, almost three 
times as large, but it has not many more people, because 
of its extreme aridity. The plateau is much lower than 
Tibet and, accordingly, does not get so much rain. The 
summers are very hot and the winters very cold. Much 
of the plateau is an absolute desert of sand. The people 
are mostly nomads. 



THE PLATEAUS OF INNER ASIA 



157 



Smaller Plateaus of Inner Asia. In addition to Tibet 
and Mongolia there are smaller plateaus in Inner Asia, 
some high like Tian Shan and others lower like the 
Altai region. There are also several basins, the chief of 
which is that of Lop in Chinese or East Turkistan. 
The Lap Basin is larger than Tibet and has about the 
same population. Its people live in fertile oases at 
the foot of the mountains. We shall describe them 
in the next chapter. The remainder of this chapter 
will be devoted to the Kirghiz nomads of the Tian Shan 
Plateau. The people of Tian Shan differ in race from 
those of either Mongolia or Tibet, but all three races are 
nomads and live in. much the same way. Nomads and 
oasis dwellers are the only sort of people who can live in 
Inner Asia, because it is so dry. The whole number of 
people in the region is only five million. Yet the area is 
as great as that of the United States, and more than that 
of the Pacific Slope of Asia, which has about one hundred 
times as many people. If Inner Asia had as much rain as 
the Pacific Slope, it could support almost as many people. 




A Mongol encampment 



15^ ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

The Necessity of Nomadism in Tian Shan. The Tian 
Shan Plateau is a great upland about ten thousand feet 
above the sea. From its general level, snowy mountains 
rise to much greater heights, while between them broad 
plains and basins lie spread out for miles. Snow covers 
even the lowest basins for seven or eight months of the 
year, and farming is impossible. There is a great deal of 
fine grass, however, full of wild flowers, such as pansies, 
daisies, and gentians, and a host of others. The grass fur- 
nishes good pasture for many kinds of animals during 
the summer ; but neither animals nor men can live in the 
deep snow during the winter. If people are to use 
the grass, they must be nomads who come up to the 
plateau with their animals in summer and go down to 
the lower valleys in winter. 

Up on the plateau it is best to move from place to 
place every two or three weeks ; for otherwise thv-: 
gra"§s in one spot is eaten up, and the animals do 
not get so fat as they do when they have all the grass 
they want. So the Kirghiz have adopted the nomadic 
life. They move regularly from place to place, accord- 
ing to the season, coming back to a given spot at 
about the same time each year. Since they move 
around so much, their houses must be of a kind that can 
easily be taken to pieces and carried about ; hence tents 
are used. Willow wood and woolen cloth, being the 
easiest materials to get, are used for making these 
portable dwellings. The tents have large round holes in 
the top to let out the smoke; for fires are often made 
in them. Even the richest men cannot have very large 
tents, because large tents cannot be moved. So the 
rich and the poor all live in much the same way, which 
makes the Kirghiz democratic. 

Migrations Among the Kirghiz. A Kirghiz migration 



THE PLATEAUS OF INNER ASIA 159 

is an interesting sight. At evening a village of ten or 
fifteen round, gray tents stands on a grassy slope at the 
foot of massive limestone cliffs. At one side hundreds 
of stupid sheep, with huge fat tails, try to push their 
way into the middle of a large flock. Women in dresses of 
white cotton, or of red, green, or yellow silk, catch some 
of the sheep and milk them, while funny little lambs run 
about, bleating and trying to find their mothers. On 
the other side of the tents herds of neighing, kicking 
horses, fat mares, and frisky colts are mixed up with 
stolid cows and oxen, or with camels. The camels are 
great beasts with two humps. They love the dry desert, 
and are likely to catch cold in the moist mountains 
where they are taken to grow fat. So the Kirghiz make 
coats of felt for them, which are worn night and day. 

In the morning the attractive scene of the evening 
is wholly changed. Pieces of tents are lying on the 
ground, with household goods scattered all around them. 
In one place a number of gay leather boxes stand on the 
green grass ; near by some quilts are spread on the ground. 
Next to these lies a pile of saddles, and beyond them 
some red and blue rugs, a dozen leather bags and buckets, 
and some wooden bowls. There are no chairs or tables 
or beds. The furniture and dishes are of very simple 
kinds, which can be carried easily on the backs of ani- 
mals, and will not break if the loads fall off when the 
animals run away. 

Very early in the morning the slow-moving, pattering 
flocks of sheep are sent away to spend the day in walking 
the twelve miles to the next encampment. Then oxen 
and camels are led up to be loaded. A camel nine feet 
high is a very fierce-looking animal, but little Kirghiz 
girls, seven or eight years old, are not at all afraid of such 
a beast. A girl will lead a camel up to a pile of tent 



i6o ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

cloth and poles, and twitch the rope tied to a peg through 
the animal's nose. The camel roars horribly and tries 



h 




^ , :• 


1 


- 




HH^KI^/ 




J 





A Kirghiz mother and daughter coming to make a call 

to get away, but when she twitches the rope again the 
great animal drops down on its knees, then squats on 
its hind legs, and lastly pushes forward its knees 
until the horny pad on its breast rests on the ground, 
and it is ready to be loaded. When a camel's load has 
been well fastened on, a mother takes her baby and ties 
it securely into a little wooden cradle, which she puts 
on top of the camel. Over the cradle she throws a 
big rug, and ties it down tightly. Then the camel gets 
up and walks about, and the mother, in spite of the 
crying of her baby, goes off to help in loading the other 
pack animals. 

While the women and girls are doing these things, 
the men and boys are catching riding horses. For this 
purpose a boy takes a pole, like a fishing pole with a rope 
tied to the end of it in place of a fish line. He jumps 
on a bridled, unsaddled horse that has been kept tied near 



THE PLATEAUS OF INNER ASIA i6i 

the tents all night, and gallops away after another 
horse. Often he has a long chase, but in the end he is 
pretty sure to be able to' throw the rope around a horse's 
neck and bring the animal in to be saddled. 

At last everything is packed, and the procession is 
now ready to start. First comes a group of men on good 
horses, then some women and girls riding their horses 
astride quite as well as their husbands and brothers. 
The girls wear silk dresses like those of their mothers or, 
if it is cold, long gowns of quilted cotton. On their 
heads they wear big caps w4th broad fur brimis, even in 
summer. When they are married, they will give up the 
caps and wear headdresses of white or pink cloth, pret- 
tily embroidered and many yards long. The cloth is 
wound around the head again and again, until it forms 
a cylinder a foot high. Then, too, they will lengthen 
the braids of their straight black hair by adding black 
thread or horsehair. At the end they will tie some 
silver coins and the keys to all the family boxes. They 
will have no pockets, but they will never lose their keys, 
which jingle behind them not far above their heels. 

Next in the procession after the girls comes a man 
on a cow; then a heavily-loaded camel with two small 
boys swaying around on top of the load, and two funny 
baby camels running behind. After these, two fat cows, 
with rings in their noses and loads of poles on their 
backs, walk quietly along. They are driven by an old 
man with a black fur cap, who carries on his wrist a 
hunting eagle w4th a leather hood over its eyes. His 
little grandson, three years old, stands on the horse's 
back behind him, firmly grasping the old man's shoul- 
ders. No Kirghiz fears a horse. The little boy's brother 
comes next, riding on a young steer and driving a 
herd of frisky horses. Toward evening the camping place 



1 62 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

has teen reached by every one. Once more the tents 
are all in place and everything looks as it did the night 
before, twelve miles away. 

The Travels and Hospitality of the Kirghiz. The 
Kirghiz are compelled to travel so much that they prize 
horses more than anything else. If a Kirghiz is going 
to make a journey, he starts out in the morning on 
his horse. By noon, perhaps, he comes to another camp, 
where he leaves his own horse and takes another. The 
next day, as he goes on, he takes a third and a fourth, 
changing horses as often as he chooses and never paying 
anything. By and by the horses are taken back to 
their owners; but nobody cares if his horse is away 
two or three weeks, because all but the very poor have 
a great many. Of course there are no hotels or inns in 
the Tian Shan country. So the Kirghiz, like all nomadic 
people, are very hospitable. They love to have guests, 
and often kill a lamb or a sheep for them. Sour milk is 
the commonest food, although much meat is eaten. 
Many of the Kirghiz have almost no bread, since they 
cannot raise any crops among the mountains. In some 
places bread is so rare that the children almost never 
taste it. They think it is as good to get a piece of 
bread as children in America think it is to get candy. 



CHAPTER XV 

A SEA OF SAND AND SALT 

Old Stories of the Lop Basin. In the old days before 
people knew much about geography, they used to tell 
queer stories about the Lop Basin in Chinese Turkistan. 
It is so hard to reach the basin that very few people 
go there, and explorers have only recently found out 
the truth. According to one old story, the middle of 
the basin was occupied by a vast sea of sand instead 
of water. The sea, so it was said, had great waves which 
rose and fell like those of the ocean. It could not be 
crossed in boats or in any other way. In it, wonder- 
ful to say, many delicious fish were supposed to live, 
without water. Of the rivers which flowed into the 
sea one was said to be made of precious stones instead 
of water, and others were thought to flow six days of 
the week and rest on Sunday. 

The Sea of Sand of the Takhla Makan Desert. Of course 
these stories are not true, but every one of them has 
some truth back of it. For example, the sea of sand is a 
sandy desert as long as from New York to Chicago and as 
wide as from Cincinnati to Detroit. It consists of sand 
which has been blown by the winds into long dunes or 
rows, like waves. On the side from which the strongest 
winds blow the dunes slope gently, while on the other 
side the slopes are steep and very hard to climb. Some 
of the dunes are only a few feet high and fifty or a 
hundred feet long. Others are like small mountains, 
four or five hundred feet high and many miles long. 
Among the big dunes it is impossible to travel, because it 
is so hard to walk up the steep slopes in the soft sand. 

163 



1 64 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

Even if one could walk, it would be impossible to travel 
far, as there is no water. 

Once a bold Swedish traveler named Hedin crossed 
part of this desert, carrying water for his men, but none 
for his camels. After four or five days the camels 
became very hungry and thirsty, for it was not possible 
to find water so soon as Hedin had expected. By and 
by a camel died, and then another. The water for the 
men, which was carried in leather bags, was all used up, 
and they, too, began to be very thirsty and terribly 
weary. Finally they could go no farther; the last 
camel gave out, and there seemed to be no way to get 
any water. The natives lay down to die. Hedin would 
not give up, but struggled on through the sand, some- 
times falling down because he was so weary. He knew 
he must be near the border of the sandy country and 
that there he would find a river. By and by he saw 
some poor, half-dead trees, and then the tracks of 
animals, which proved that water was near. At last he 
reached the river and lay down beside it to drink. 
As soon as he had refreshed himself and gained his 
strength again, he took off his high boots, filled them 
with water, and tramped back to revive the men whom 
he had left perishing in the desert. 

The Rivers of the Lop Basin. In a country so dry as 
this the only water is that which comes from rivers. 
The Lop Basin is surrounded on every side by the high 
plateaus where the Kirghiz, Tibetans, and Mongols 
live. At the foot of the plateaus, thousands of feet 
below the grassy uplands, rivers come out from moun- 
tain valleys and deposit their load of sand and pebbles 
in the form of a great sloping plain, like that of Trans- 
easpia. This deposit of piedmont gravel, as it is called 
because it is found at the foot of the mountains, is very 



A SEA OF SAND AND SALT 165 

dry and bare, looking almost like an enormous beach 
from five to forty miles wide. There is nothing to be 
seen in crossing it except whirlwinds of dust blown up 
hundreds of feet and countless pebbles which have been 
polished and carved by the wind-driven sand into little 
three-cornered pyramids. In this gravel most of the 
rivers lose themselves. Their waters simply sink into 
the ground and disappear. During sunny days, when 
much snow melts upon the mountains, the rivers flow 
far, even across the gravel. When clouds shield the 
mountains from the sun and very little snow melts, 
the rivers disappear as soon as they reach the gravel. 
This explains how it came to pass that the old stories told 
of rivers of stone, which flowed some days and not others. 
At Khotan when the river dries up, crowds of people 
go out and dig in its bed for jade, a kind of stone which 
is extremely hard and of which the Chinese are very 
fond. It is red, white, green, 'or black, and makes 
pretty bowls, pipes, and bracelets. One might almost 
say that the river of Khotan is a stream of precious 
stones. 

The Zones of the Lop Basin. The Lop Basin is divided 
into zones or rings, as it were. On the outside lies the 
plateau zone, and inside that, the barren zone of gravel. 
Then comes a zone of vegetation where all the oases are, 
and inside that, the sandy desert. The ring or zone of 
vegetation does not get any more rain than the deserts 
on either side of it ; but a great deal of water, which has 
been lost in the gravel, here lies just below the surface of 
the ground. Accordingly, many plants can grow, such 
as reeds, poplars, and feathery tamarisk bushes with tiny 
grayish-green scales for leaves and sweet-scented purple 
sprays of flowers. In the zone of vegetation life is very 
easy. The Chantos, who inhabit it, get water from 



i66 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



springs or from the few rivers which cross the gravel. 
They spread it over the fertile soil and are able to raise 
many kinds of crops. Occasionally one sees miles and 
miles of fields, with yellowish-gray walls of dry mud 
around them. The houses, which are also made of 
mud, are surrounded by gardens of fine melons, vineyards 
full of luscious grapes, and orchards of splendid peaches, 
apricots, plums, and other fruit. At Turfan, a small 
basin near the Lop Basin, the people of one village do 
nothing but raise grapes — a small green kind without 
seeds. These grapes make such good raisins that sup- 
plies of them are sent a three months' journey by caravan 
every year to Peking, for use in the Emperor's palace. 
The Chantos of the Zone of Vegetation. The people of 
the pleasant oases hate to go out into the dreary desert. 
So they stay at home, and know very little about other 
parts of the world. This makes them timid and always 




Chanto men and hoy drinking tea in a garden 



A SEA OF SAND AND SALT 



167 



anxious to please strangers, whom they fear. They 
always say the thing which they think will please others. 
Once % traveler hired 
6ne of them as a guide 
in the desert. The 
other villagers said 
that the man knew 
all about the desert 
and could take the 
traveler to a well 
there. The native, 
who was chief of 
the canals and dis- 
tributed the water of 
the oasis, did not dare 
confess that he did 
not know the place, 
for fear he would be 
laughed at or the 
traveler would be 
angry. He trusted to luck to find the well. The party 
wandered around in the sand for four days in hot 
weather. Their water came to an end, and they had 
to hurry anxiously back to the river. The camels 
became so thirsty that their throats rattled horribly. 
If the Chantos did not lead such easy lives in the 
sheltered oasis, and had not thus become so weak and 
cowardly, they would tell the truth and save themselves 
and others many annoying experiences. 

Sand-buried Ruins. The traveler with the poor guide 
was looking for ruins. In many places there are the 
remains of old villages far out in the midst of the sand, 
where now there is no water. The natives say that long 
ago the people who lived in the ruins were very wicked. 




A Chanto dinner of sour milk 
and coarse corn bread 



1 68 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

A holy man came and told them to repent. When they 
would not do it, he began to turn a hand mill of the 




A roadway in an oasis in Chinese Turkistan 

kind used for grinding flour. When he turned it, sand 
began to fall from the sky and buried the villages. This is 
merely a legend, or story, to explain something which the 
people do not understand. During the last one or two 
thousand years the climate of Chinese Turkistan, and of 
other parts of Asia, has grown more and more dry. The 
rivers have become smaller; and in many places where 
once there were many people no one can now live. The 
sand in the desert is moving all the time. When a 
village has to be given up for lack of water, sand quickly 
blows in and covers it up. 

Deposits of Loess Made by the Wind. When the wind 
blows hard, so much sand and dust are borne along in 
the air that no one can see more than a few hundred feet. 
The sand blows into people's eyes and almost makes them 
blind. Travelers cover their heads with cloths and lie 
down to wait till the wind dies away. If the wind lasts 



A SEA OF SAND AND SALT 169 

long the sand sometimes smothers people. When it is 
over, the air is gray and dim with faUing dust for days. 
In writing a letter the paper must be brushed every 
ten or fifteen minutes, or else the dust will be so thick 
that the pen will be clogged. A great deal of dust is blown 
southward from the desert to the mountains. There it 
slowly falls, and is kept from being carried away by the 
grass which grows on the mountain slopes. In this way 
deep accumulations of a peculiar yellow earth called loess 
have been brought from the desert and laid down 
in the moister places, where they form fertile soil. 
Millions of people dwell on deposits of this kind in China 
Proper. 

Lop-nor : The Lake of the Lop Basin. There are a few 
rivers in Chinese Turkistan that are not lost in the gravel, 
and are not used for irrigation. They flow to the lowest 
part of the basin, and there form an irregular lake. It 
is like that of Seistan, except that it is smaller and more 
shallow. Most of it is merely a great marsh full of tall 
reeds. The deeper parts of the lake contain fish, which 
are caught by people called Lopliks, who live in houses 
made of reeds. The Lopliks eat almost nothing but fish. 
Long ago, when people first heard about the Lop Basin, 
they were told that fish came from it. As they did not 
know of the lake, but only of the sand, they thought that 
the fish lived in the sand. The part of the lake of Lop 
farthest from the mouths of the rivers is salty. Long 
ago, in the days when people lived in the region where 
sand has now buried the ruins of old towns, the lake was 
much larger. As the lake grew smaller, great quan- 
tities of salt were deposited in its old bed. Now, a 
plain of hard rock salt, two hundred miles or more 
long, surrounds the lake. There is not the slightest 
sign of any living thing, either plant or animal. For 



I70 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

days one stumbles over angular blocks of rock salt, 
broken into sheets an inch or two thick, which stick up 
two or three feet like the frozen waves of a choppy sea. 
When an explorer who was crossing it picked out what 
seemed like a soft, smooth place in which to pitch a tent, 
he found that the salt was so hard it bent the iron 
tent pegs double. He and his men had to take axes and 
chop away the hummocks of salt in order to get places 
large enough to lie down on at night to sleep. The sea 
of salt and the sea of sand in Chinese Turkistan are 
probably the most barren deserts in the world outside 
of Arabia. 



CHAPTER XVI 



MANCHURIA: THE LAND OF BEANS 

Uses of the Bean. Everyone in this country has 
heard of Boston baked beans, but very few people know 
anything about 
Manchurian bean 
cake. Manchu- 
rian beans are of 
many colors — 
red, white, green, 
black, yellow, and 
spotted. They 
are raised almost 
everywhere, and 
are used in all 
sorts of ways. 
Some are eaten 
green, some 




are 



Copyright bj Underwood & Underwood 

Grinding grain in Manchuria 

pickled, and others are dried and boiled. Part of the 
crop is also fed to horses and cattle, and part exported 
to Japan and south China. Often beans are allowed 
to sprout in water until the plump white roots are 
about two inches long. Then they are boiled and 
stewed with a little meat, or with only a gravy, and 
form the favorite Chinese dish called "chop suey. " 
Sometimes the beans are boiled a little and then ground 
into flour. The flour is made into dough, which is 
pressed through a peculiar colander with holes the size 
of a very large pin. The dough comes out in long 
white strings like the. kind of macaroni called vermicelli. 
This bean macaroni is eaten in most parts of China, 



171 



172 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

and is very good. For home use the Manchurians make 
a sort of bean cheese. Besides all these ways of using 
beans, great quantities are boiled and then pressed, to 
get the oil which they contain. Part of the oil is used 
for food, like olive oil and butter; and part is used for 
native lamps, like kerosene. When it is to be sent to 
distant places, it is put in great wicker baskets lined 
with paper, or else in tight wooden boxes. The dry 
part left after the oil is squeezed out forms the fa- 
mous Manchurian bean cake. It is sold for good prices 
to the Japanese and Chinese for fertilizing the fields. 

The Resemblance between Manchuria and North- 
eastern United States. Before New^ England became a 
manufacturing region, most of the inhabitants were 
farmers. The climate is just right for raising certain 
kinds of beans which do not grow so well farther south. 
Naturalty, in New England the people raised a good 
many. Hence people joke about Boston baked beans. 
At present most of the food which New Englanders eat 
comes from the West, and the places where beans are 
chiefly raised are western New York and southern Michi- 
gan. The climate there is nearly the same as that of 
New England, but the plains are larger and the rocks 
fewer than farther east. The northeastern part of the 
United States is the bean region of the Western Hemi- 
sphere, just as Manchuria is the bean region of the Eastern 
Hemisphere. The reason is that both places have a 
climate adapted to the growth of especially good varieties 
of that particular vegetable. 

There are many other much more important ways in 
which the two regions are alike. The country from the 
Amur River southward to the Yellow Sea, including 
Manchuria, Chosen, and the strip of Siberia called Pri- 
morsk, which lies north of Vladivostok, is in the same 



MANCHURIA: THE LAND OF BEANS 173 

latitude as that part of North America which extends 
from the St. Lawrence River southwestward to Chesa- 
peake Bay. Both regions are located on the east 
side of a great continent and on the west side of a great 
ocean. Therefore, they have much the same type of 
climate, the same kinds of plants and animals, and the 
same relation to the countries round about. 

Differences between Manchuria and Northeastern 
United States: Rainfall. Although the American region, 
of which New England is the center, and the Asiatic 
region, of which Manchuria is the center, are alike in 
many ways, there are several important points in which' 
they differ. For instance, in Asia high mountains rise 
close to the sea, and their ruggedness prevents the coast 
from being as thickly settled as it is in America. They 
also shut out part of the rain which would otherwise fall 
on the inland districts. Therefore, as one goes west 
from the Liau-ho and the Sungari he finds the country 
growing more and more dry. The plains at the foot of 
the Khingan Escarpment have so little rain that there is 
almost no agriculture. Those in a corresponding place 
in America form the rich states of Indiana, Illinois, and 
Michigan, where there is plenty of rain and where some 
of the finest farms in the world are located. 

Out-blowing and In-blowing Continental Winds. An- 
other important difference between the Asiatic and 
American regions is due to the fact that Eurasia is very 
much larger than North America. The land in all 
parts of the world grows cool or grows warm much 
faster than the sea. In winter Eurasia cools off very 
fast during the short days, when the sun in all the 
northern parts never gets high above the horizon. 
This causes the air over the land to contract so that the 
air over the ocean stands, so to speak, at a higher level 



174 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

than that over the land. Therefore, far above the 
earth's surface there is a landward flow, and the 
amount of air over the land increases. It presses 
down on the land and causes winds which blow out 
toward the ocean, especially eastward across the north- 
ern part of Manchuria and the Pacific Slope, which thus 
becomes very cold. Even in the southern part of 
Manchuria the thermometer often goes down to about 
20° below zero, and farther north a temperature of 30° 
or 40° below zero is common. The winds that blow out 
from Siberia contain very little moisture. Hence, there 
is not much snow in winter. 

In the summer just the opposite happens. The great 
land mass of Eurasia grows very warm during the long 
sunny days of June and July, especially in the dry 
regions of Inner Asia. Warm air, as everyone knows, 
expands. Thus, at high levels air begins to flov/ out 
toward the sea, which is now" relatively cool. This 
destroys the balance of pressure, because there is now 
more air over the ocean than over the land. Therefore, 
cold air from the ocean comes in from all sides, taking 
the place of the w^arm air which it causes to rise. Thus, 
during the summer, strong winds blow in from the 
Pacific Ocean across Manchuria and the other parts of 
the Pacific Slope of Asia. Since it has come from the sea, 
the air contains much water. When it reaches the land 
and is obliged to rise, or becomes cool for any other reason, 
it gives up the water in the form of heavy rain. 

The Heavy Rains of Summer. In Manchuria some- 
times half of the yearly rainfall of twenty or thirty inches 
falls in the two months of June and July, or of July and 
August. Everything is soaked. The rivers all overflow 
and spread out so that they are very nearly like lakes. 
Umbrellas are of little use if one has to stay out long. 



MANCHURIA: THE LAND OF BEANS 17S 

Some of the wilder native tribes make themselves clothes 
of the skins of large salmon, to shed the rain. Sometimes 
in wet weather one meets a native dressed only in a 
loin cloth and a big hat like an umbrella. The rest 
of his clothes are on top of his head, wrapped in an 
oilskin, so that he may have something dry to put 
on when he reaches a village. 

The Difficulties of Transportation. During the rainy 
season the roads of Manchuria are merely long lanes 
of mud, sometimes soft and oozy, and at other times 
somewhat stiff and very sticky. It is almost impossible 
to travel, except in the mountains where the roads are 
rocky and hard. In the great central plains, where 
most of the people live, there is not a sign of a rock or 
stone for hundreds of miles. Fine soil will never make 
hard roads when rain is falling. In summer the Man- 
churians find it so difficult to travel that most of the 
time they stay at home and look after the crops. 

The few carts that travel over the soft roads in sum- 
mer cut deep ruts. In the fall the country dries up and 
then freezes. A traveler, starting out in the winter, 
takes a two-wheeled native Chinese cart without springs, 
and goes bumping over the rough frozen roads. Each 
big wheel has four heavy spokes, and no more, while 
the axle turns with the wheels. The body of the cart con- 
sists of a little floor of boards on which is set a small blue 
top. One horse or mule is put in the shafts. Ahead of 
him two or three others are harnessed abreast, and 
ahead of them two or three more. Passenger carts gen- 
erally have five horses. Freight carts, which are 
larger and have no tops, usually have seven horses. The 
horses are all driven with a very long whip like a fishing 
pole, and without bridle, bit, or reins. The drivers hang 
their feet over the front edge of the cart, and direct the 



176 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

leaders by yelling at them or by hitting them with the 
whip in just the right place. When a person who is not 
used to the whip tries to use it, he almost invariably 
hits several horses at a time. Then they all try to go 
in different directions, and soon there is a runaway. 

The winter is the season for traveling and sometimes 
a thousand carts a day are seen on important routes. 
Some carry beans, bean oil, tobacco, wheat, or millet. 
Others are loaded with silk, opium, and furs. All the 
drivers are dressed in furs or in quilted gowns of cotton. 




A Chinese mil:! :' ;;:. 

Many have diamond-shaped pieces of woolen cloth tied 
from ear to ear across their faces to keep their noses 
from freezing. Others wear masks with no opening 
except for the eyes. Many protect their feet by means 
of large leather shoes stuffed with soft grass to keep out 
the cold. If a man has a beard, he must take care 
that it does not freeze tight to his coat and mask. 

A Manchurian Inn. At night the traveler stops at 
an inn, a large, fairly clean building with one big room 
inside and stables outside. Either side of the room is 
bordered by a raised platform of dry mud, where 



MANCHURIA: THE LAND OF BEANS 177 

travelers sit to get warm. Such platforms are very 
common in China. Under them the people burn wood, 
or more often weeds, the smoke of which goes all around 
underneath and then through a little chimney to the 
outside. The platform becomes pleasantly warm, and 
makes a fine place on which to sleep during the bitterly 
cold winter. 

Robbers. One night when a traveler was staying at 
such an inn, he heard a great shouting and the sound of 
gun shots and of the hoofs of galloping horses. Two 
carts came thundering down the road and dashed into 
the courtyard of the inn, just as the owner slammed the 
gate shut and bolted it. All the guests came running 
out crying, "Hun-hu-tze! Hun-hu-tze!" which means 
"red-beards," and also "robbers." Many shots were 
fired, and one man in the courtyard was wounded and 
a horse was killed. Then the robbers heard that there 
was a European in the inn and ran away. But before 
they went, they took all the money from the people 
in three carts that had not succeeded in getting into 
the courtyard before the gates were shut. 

The next day the traveler saw some Chinese soldiers 
taking two prisoners to Mukden. They were robbers 
who had been captured, and were to be killed as a 
punishment. In Manchuria robbery has for many 
years been a regular profession, although now it is being 
stopped by the Japanese and Russians. In the old 
days the Chinese thought Manchuria a cold, desolate 
place. So, w^hen anyone had done some wrong thing at 
home in China, the officials sent him off to this poor 
country as a punishment. In this way Mailchuria came 
to have many bad men, who, for lack of a better means 
of earning a living, began to rob the peaceful settlers. 
Soon the robbers banded themselves together, and 



17S ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

instituted a regular S3^stem by which everyone had to 
pay them so much, or else be robbed. Not long ago they 
became so powerful that all travelers by cart and all 
junks going down the rivers in summer paid a regular 
fee for the sake of being let alone. A robber soldier, with 
a red flag bearing the word "Vengeance" in Chinese, 
would stop fifty carts at a time ; and each one would pay 
him something. 

Wild Animals. At the inn where the robbers ran 
away from the European, there was a man from the 
high mountains in the eastern part of Manchuria. 
When the traveler questioned him, he said, "Oh, I 
come from the mountains, where for miles and miles 
there is nothing to be seen except beautiful woods. 
The whole country is full of animals. I have killed bears 
and foxes and wolves, and many other kinds of game. 
There are so many wild animals that it is a religious duty 
for everyone to kill them. The best animals are the 
tigers. I shot one last month. Now I am taking its skin 
down to Mukden to sell to a Chinese official. I have 
its bones, too, because the Chinese pay good prices for 
them to grind up and use as medicine." 

Dog Farms. While he was talking, another man from 
the foot of the mountains came up and said, "I am 
carrying dogskins to market. You see it is so cold in 
our part of the country, far to the north, that the dogs 
have very thick, fine hair. So we raise a great many of 
them for fur. They forage around and find food for 
themselves much of the time, but we give them some 
millet every day, not good millet, but that which is too 
poor for either horses or men. When a girl is married, 
her father often gives her five or six dogs, and with those 
a family can almost make a living. When we kill the 
animals we not only sell the skins, but eat the meat." 



■t 



MANCHURIA: THE LAND OF BEANS 



179 



Products of Manchuria. In another man's cart the 
traveler saw a great deal of frozen meat. Part of it 
was deer's meat or 
venison, and part 
was frozen spar- 
rows and frogs, 
which only rich 
people eat. An- 
other cart was full 
of pork. There are 
a great many pigs 
in Manchuria, and 
all of them are 
black. The driver 
of the meat cart, 
like the majority of 
Manchurians, lived 
on bread made of 
millet. Although 




Copyright by Eeyatone View Co. 

A merchant's son, in Manchuria, 
delivering a bale of rice 



beans are the greatest export of the country, millet 
is the chief food. It grows in large heads at the 
top of long stalks like those of corn. Many of the carts 
on the road were loaded with millet stalks to be used for 
fuel. Others had beans in baskets constructed of mat- 
ting made from millet. Millet is also used to make 
an intoxicating drink like rum, which is much used by 
the Manchurians. Without the millet and beans most 
of the Manchurians would not know how to live. They 
have many other kinds of farm products, however, 
and are beginning to grow wheat, which thrives in this 
region and is rapidly becoming an important crop. 
Everything that grows in the northeastern part of 
the United States grows, or could be made to grow, in 
Manchuria. 



i8o 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



A Chinese soldier 

on duty in the 

provinces 



The Population of Manchuria. Manchuria is a large 
region, almost equal in size to New England, New York, 
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West 
Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, and Michi- 
..JMMjiNjj^^^ gan. It has nearly half as many 
^Hpl^^^l inhabitants as all these states together. 
Mtt'L^^^B In the east the high mountains contain 
■Bt^^BB very few people. The whole region is 
wooded. Most of the people are either 
hunters, lumberers, or gold miners. 
The center of Manchuria consists wholly 
of rich river plains, and here the popula- 
tion is very dense. Except in the large 
towns the inhabitants are almost all 
farmers. In the west the plains are 
made of loess, a fine soil brought by 
the winds, and are so dry that there are not many farms. 
The people are not numerous ; some of them are nomads 
like the Mongols farther west. 

The Manchus. Most of the inhabitants of Manchuria 
are Chinese, who have come into the country during 
the last fifty years or more. Only a small number 
belong to the race of the Manchus, the original people 
of Manchuria. About three hundred years ago the 
Manchus conquered China, and now the Chinese Em- 
peror and many of the highest officials are Manchus. 
Manchu men look much like Chinese men, although they 
are usually taller and stronger. Manchu women do not 
dress exactly like Chinese women. They do not bind 
their feet when they are girls and, therefore, are able to 
walk around easily. Many of them wear wooden shoes 
three or four inches high, which make them look much 
taller than they really are. 

The Political Condition of Manchuria. At the present 



MANCHURIA: THE LAND OF BEANS i8i 

time Manchuria is in an uncomfortable political con- 
dition. The country belongs to China; but Russia and 
Japan both exert a great deal of influence upon it. 
Russia wants to control a route through Manchuria to 
the harbors on the southern coast which, unlike those of 
Siberia, are open all the year and not frozen up six 
months. Japan thinks that it would be dangerous for 
her if Russia controlled Manchuria. Moreover, her own 
country is too small for all of her people. She cannot raise 
food enough at home, but must buy food from abroad; 
and no market is so convenient as the splendid wheat 
fields of Manchuria. From them she can bring food, or 
to them her people can go as colonists, unless some 
nation like Russia shuts her out. Since the war between 
Japan and Russia, in 1904 and 1905, Japanese influence 
has been very strong in the southern part of Manchuria 
to a point north of Mukden, and Russian influence has 
been strong farther north. Neither country is supposed 
to own Manchuria. Each, however, claims part of the 
railroad, and so keeps soldiers there to protect the line 
and the stations. 



CHAPTER XVII 

CHOSEN (KOREA): THE LAND OF THE 
MORNING CALM 

Japanese Influence. Chosen, like Manchuria, is a 
country which has given rise to quarrels among her 
neighbors — China, Russia, and Japan. In the old days, 
centuries ago. Chosen, then called Korea, was ruled by 
China; and the Koreans obtained from the Chinese the 
Buddhist religion, as well as various customs and arts- 
Many of these things they passed on to Japan, Now, 
just the opposite is happening. Chosen has passed under 
the protection of Japan, and has finally become a part 
of the Japanese Empire. The Korean government has 
been overturned and the country is now ruled by Japa- 
nese officials. Consequently, the Japanese are teaching 
the Koreans and Chinese many things about government 
and science which they, themselves, have learned from 
Europe and America. It is natural that Chosen should 
be a sort of halfway kingdom. It is not Japanese and it is 
not Chinese, but it has many customs which have been 
learned from each of its neighbors. It is completely 
separated from the two by the sea and by mountains, 
and yet it lies very close to both. 

The Korean Mountains. Chosen is a wonderfully 
beautiful country. In the north the splendid range of the 
Ever-White Mountains lifts its densely -wooded heights 
to an elevation of 8,700 feet above the sea. Mile 
after mile one can travel among primeval forests, which 
clothe the sides of deep, picturesque valleys and high 
mountain ridges. Among the trees wild animals still 
wander, just as in the Manchurian mountains farther 

182 



CHOSEN: THE LAND OF THE MORNING CALM 183 



north. A few tigers, still here, are hunted by men who 
make a business of selling the skins, or the claws for rich 




Copyright bj Underwood & Underwood 

Soul from the south gate. In the background may he seen 
the French and American churches 

Korean women to carry in their purses as charms to 
prevent ill luck. In a large part of northern Chosen the 
mountains rise so high that the temperature is too cold 
for extensive agriculture, and the population cannot 
be large. The height of the mountains and their rela- 
tively uninhabited character make it difficult to cross 
from the plains of Manchuria to the more habitable cen- 
tral and southern parts of Chosen. Hence , the boundary 
between the two countries has become fixed in this 
region. vSome day the lofty trees will doubtless be cut 
for lumber; and miners will come into the region, for 
the high mountains are full of gold and other minerals. 



1 84 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

As one advances southward, the Korean mountains 
decrease in height and become correspondingly more 
habitable. The main chain runs near the east coast. 
On that side the slopes are very steep, and only a small 
amount of land is flat enough to cultivate. On the west 
minor mountain ranges run irregularly toward the sea, 
inclosing between them lovely valleys where the soil 
is fertile and agriculture highly profitable. Here 
village after village is inhabited by a contented, happy 
population of Koreans. The richness of the land, the 
beauty of the scenery, and the" delightful character of 
the climate furnish almost ideal surroundings. 

Summer and Winter Seasons. In winter the prevail- 
ing winds blow out from the continent of Asia, as they 
do in Manchuria. In Chosen, however, they are not 
biting cold as they are farther west. Having crossed 
the waters of the Yellow Sea, they have been warmed 
somewhat. Hence, although the winter climate is crisp 
and invigorating and there is plenty of frost, the cold 
is not benumbing as it is on the main continent.- In 
crossing the Yellow Sea the winds do not have time to 
gather much moisture. Hence, there is relatively little 
rain or snow in winter, and the almost perpetually clear 
skies make that season delightful. The summers, too, 
are very pleasant. The winds then blow from the ocean 
toward the land, and bring with them a fair amount of 
moisture. During July and August and part of Septem- 
ber the weather is warm and muggy and the rainfall is 
quite heavy. Still, it is rarely so hot or damp that one 
cannot walk or exercise with comfort. The fact that 
Chosen gets its rainfall chiefly in summer is of great benefit, 
for the abundant supply of w*ater in midsummer causes 
vegetation to grow luxuriantly. The mountain slopes 
are so damp that a species of wild rice grows without 



i 



CHOSEN: THE LAND OF THE MORNING CALM 185 

irrigation. Ordinary rice is grown in large quantities. 
Occasionally the summer rains are insufficient and the 
rice crop fails, bringing famine upon the land. 

The Korean Coast. Except in the north where the 
Ever- White Mountains block the end of the peninsula, 
Chosen is completely surrounded by the sea. Hundreds 
of thousands, or even one or two million years ago, the 
region now occupied by the Yellow Sea was dry land 
which stretched from Shantung across to Chosen and 
thence to Japan. Then the land, with all its fertile 
valleys and plains, sank beneath the ocean. Little by 
little, during thousands of years, the water kept coming 
in over the land. The plains became broad expanses 
of blue sea, the surrounding hills became islands, and the 
valleys at the foot of the mountains, deep bays and gulfs. 

To-day the coasts of Chosen, especially on the west 
and south, may be called drowned, like those of Asia 
Minor. On the west coast hundreds of lovely islands 
rise steep and wooded from the bluest of seas. Some 
are only small rocks; others are so large that thou- 
sands of people live upon them, in the valleys and 
small plains between the great forested mountains. 
Here and there, deep bays run many miles into the land. 
As the bays have wide mouths and narrow heads, the tide 
rises very high — twenty feet in most places and forty 
feet in some. At low tide great mud flats lie bare, and 
reefs and rocks are seen on every side. On such a shore 
boats meet with many dangers. So iii the past the 
Chinese have generally come to Chosen by the hard land 
route through Manchuria rather than brave the dangers 
of the sea. Now that steamers are in use and people 
have learned to build lighthouses and to make good 
maps of dangerous places, it is much easier to sail the 
Korean seas. 



i86 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 




Copyright by Underwood & Underwood 

Fusan: looking northwest across tJie native section. 



CHOSEN: THE LAND OF THE MORNING CALM 187 

On the southeast coast the tides are not so high, and 
the harbors are much better than on the west. Hence, 
communication with Japan has always been fairly easy 
and Japanese ships now come in large numbers to the 
port of Fusan. In this part of Chosen the people 
naturally have many Japanese habits, while on the other 
side of the country Chinese customs are more prevalent. 

The Fisher Folk of Chosen. The tides of Chosen have 
done much to isolate the Koreans by preventing them 
from being a seafaring people. In Asia Minor the many 
islands and bays produced by drowning caused the 
inhabitants to become great sailors. In Chosen this did 
not happen, because the tides are so strong that it is very 
difficult to use boats, except in the rivers. 

In the rivers and quieter waters of the west coast the 
Koreans use small boats a great deal for fishing, but dare 
not go out to sea with them. Most of the fishing is 
done on the east coast, where there has not been so 
much drowning of the land and where the tides are not 
nearly so high as on the west coast. As one comes 
near to one of the many fishing villages, people are 
seen walking about, dressed in white and wearing big 
straw hats. Seen from a distance the white clothes 
are pretty, but near at hand they almost always appear 
dirty and unattractive. The little fishing villages 
also look pretty from a distance, especially when seen 
from the sea with the universal Korean background 
of fine trees. Close at hand they are seen to consist of 
small, untidy houses facing in all directions and not 
separated by proper streets. All are low, with only one 
story. The roofs are thatched with bundles of straw 
projecting far out over the walls. Sometimes a rich 
man's house has a pretty roof of red tiles, but that is not 
common except near the cities. Near each village the 



i88 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



white sandy beach is covered for long distances with 
black fish, which are being dried in the sun. A most 

disagreeable smell 
comes from them, 
and one wonders 
how even the fisher- 
men can endure it. 
Korean Faod. 
The dried fish are 
sent to all parts of 
the country and 
everyone uses 
them. Often they 
are eaten without 
being cooked. The 
Koreans think no 
more of eating raw 
fish than we think 
of eating raw cab- 
bage. Sometimes 
when a man goes 
fishing in one of the 
rivers, instead of 
having a basket in which to put the fish, he has beside 
him a little dish of pepper and other spices. When he 
catches a fish he cleans it and then, without any cook- 
ing at all, dips it into the pepper and eats it. Some of 
the other Korean ways of preparing food are very dif- 
ferent from ours. For instance, a chicken is sometimes 
cooked entire, with the feathers, head, and claws. Most 
of the people live on rice and beans. In the north 
where it is a little too cold for rice to grow, they eat a 
kind of sorghum which is often called millet. 

Korean Hairdressing. When a foreigner first sees a 




Copyright by Underwood & Underwood 

Winnowing grain in the streets of 
Chemulpo 



CHOSEN: THE LAND OF THE MORNING CALM 189 

group of Koreans in their loose white clothes, he notices 
that some of them are men with thin beards on their 
faces and with their black hair done up in little topknots 
on the crowns of their heads. Others, whom he takes 
to be women, have their hair hanging down their backs 
in long black braids. Soon, however, he sees that some 
of the supposed women are not women at all, but 
unmarried boys and 3^oung men. When Koreans are 
married they change the way of wearing their hair. 
The women arrange theirs in curls and loops, while 
the men cut off most of theirs and have the rest done 
up in topknots. The hair thus cut off is usually sold. 
Part of it goes to China for use in lengthening Chinese 
cues. When a young man or woman is to be married, 
the best friends are asked to arrange the hair; so that 
in Chosen the "hairdresser" means what we mean by 
the "bridesmaid" or the "groomsman." 

All Koreans want to be married. As long as single, 
both men and women are treated as children. They may 
be married at only fourteen or fifteen years of age, but 
thereafter they are treated as if grown up. The boy 
puts on a man's hat, and the girl goes to live in the secluded 
rooms of the women of her husband's family. 

Korean Homes. A journey in Chosen is very pleasant. 
Recently several railroads have been built, but in most 
places one travels on horseback. In some districts no 
horses can be secured, so the traveler uses oxen or else 
walks and has his baggage carried on the backs of men 
or women. Everywhere the people are friendly. If a 
stranger comes to a village, Mr. Kim or Mr. Ni invites 
him into his little house. It may be a poor place with 
a mud floor, or with only strong mats of paper or bamboo 
to sit upon; but the Koreans will make him welcome. 
The women keep out of the way, for it is considered very 



190 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



improper for a woman to let herself be seen by any men 
except those of her own family. In the cities the women 

formerly were 
obliged to stay in 
the houses all day, 
but after sunset 
when it was dark, 
so that they could 
not be seen, they 
were permitted to 
go through the 
streets with their 
small warning lan- 
terns. This custom 
is being changed 
now. Most of the 
women, however, 
still lead a dull life, 
for women are 
despised as infe- 
riors , and are often 
abused. In the 
villages they go 




Copyright hj Dnderwood & Underwood 

A bull driver bringing wood into Soul 



about more freely than in the cities, and do more than 
their share of the work. The boys and girls play together, 
and many learn to.read and write. One favorite game 
is played by burying a ring of wood in a pile of sand. 
When all is ready, every child takes a stick and pokes as 
rapidly as possible, trying to get the ring on his stick. 

Mourning Customs. One cannot stay long in Chosen 
without seeing men with huge hats of plaited bamboo 
straw about four feet in diameter and with heavy veils 
wholly covering their faces. They are mourners whose 
fathers or mothers or near relatives have recently died. 



CHOSEN: THE LAND OF THE MORNING CAUM 191 

For a number of |^days the mourners must go about 
wearing the hats and veils and carrying big clubs. At 
certain times for three years they must make offerings 
at the graves of the dead, and during all that time 
they are forbidden to marry. The Koreans practice 
ancestor worship of the same kind as that which will 
be described in the chapter on the Chinese. 

The Love of Nature. The beauty of the forested 
mountains and drowned seacoasts of Chosen has instilled 
in the people a great love of nature. The Koreans, like 
the Japanese of whom we shall read in the next chapter, 
are one of the few Oriental peoples who go to summer 
resorts to enjoy the beauties of nature. In their summer 
houses the rich often have what are called "looking 
rooms," built especially for the purpose of commanding 
a beautiful view of the sea, or of a waterfall, a fine moun- 
tain peak, or a gorge. The Koreans believe that spirits 
of various kinds live in the brooks and trees and hills. 
The chief of all the spirits is the Mountain God, whom the 
peasants really worship, although they call themselves 
worshipers of Buddha. Many of the chief resorts are 
monasteries which Buddhist priests have built in the most 
beautiful parts of the mountains. 

Korean Progress. Altogether the Koreans are a very 
pleasant people, and have a good deal of ability. They 
are rapidly giving up their old customs and are becom- 
ing more like the people of America and Europe. 
The nature of their country is such that they have 
many metals, fine harbors, a fruitful soil, and an excel- 
lent climate. All these things make it probable that 
Chosen will always be a prosperous and civilized country. 
One of the greatest hindrances to progress is the occa- 
sional failure of the summer rain. When this happens 
the rice crop is spoiled and thousands of people starve. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

JAPAN: THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN 

A Country of the Far East. In America we think of 
Japan as far to the west across the Pacific Ocean. The 
majority of the people of the world, however, think of 
it as the most eastern of all countries. Therefore, in 
Europe Japan is spoken of as part of the Far East, and 
the Japanese, themselves, have for ages called their 
country the "Land of the Rising Sun." 

The Debt of Japan to Other Countries. The first inhabi- 
tants of Japan came from the mainland of Asia or from 
the islands of the Malay Archipelago, thousands of years 
ago. Until the middle of the last century Japan looked 
upon China as the only great civilized nation besides her- 
self, and from China she obtained much of her civiliza- 
tion. Buddhism, the chief religion of Japan, was 
founded in India, but it was brought to the Japanese 
through China and Chosen. In the same way many ideas 
as to art and literature came through Chosen from China 
to Japan; and the Japanese long ago adopted the Chinese 
method of writing and many other peculiar customs. 
During the last fifty years a great change has come over 
Japan. Instead of learning only from China and shut- 
ting herself off from the rest of the world, she has begun 
to learn from Europe and America. She has to a large 
extent adopted our system of government, our railroads, 
steamships, and telegraphs, and our ways of doing 
business. 

This does not mean that Japan is like America or 
Europe, nor that she is like China. She has learned 
many things from the rest of the world; but she is 

192 



JAPAN: THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN 193 




different from all other countries. Much of the difference 
is due to the nature of the country, as we shall presently 
see. To-day Japan 
is the most civilized 
nation of Asia. 
Indeed, in many 
ways Japan is the 
most civilized na- 
tion in the world. 
Europeans and 
Americans have 
made greater prog- 
ress than Japan in 
inventions, manu- 
factures, and com- 
merce, but Japan 
is ahead of us in 
equally important 
matters such as 
patriotism, filial respect, cleanliness, politeness, art, and 
the love of nature. 

The Influence of the Ocean. As the traveler from 
America approaches Yokohama, the chief port of Japan 
on the Pacific Ocean, he sees at once that the country is 
very beautiful. Lovely green islands rise from the blue 
water and are capped by clean, white lighthouses. • On 
the mainland densely-wooded mountains rise directly 
from the shores or from narrow, highly-cultivated plains. 
Fair bays and gulfs extend far into the land; and it is 
evident that the coast of Japan, like that of Chosen, has 
in some past time sunk and been drowned, so that now 
the sea has come into the valleys. Hundreds of white 
sailboats show that the Japanese are a seafaring people. 
Most of the boats are used in catching fish. When 



The celebrated bronze Daibutsii or image 

of Buddha at Kamakura near 

Yokohama 



194 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



a strong wind comes up and threatens to overturn the 
boats, the fishermen do not shorten their sails as we do, 
by lowering the top and tying a reef. Instead of, this, 
they make the surface exposed to the wind narrov/er than 
before, by unlacing and taking off one of the vertical 
strips of cloth of which each sail is composed. When 
people hear of customs like this, they often say that the 
Japanese are topsy-turvy. We are just as much topsy- 
turvy, for the Japanese way is often exactly as good as 
ours, and sometimes better. 

The Navy of Japan. Since Japan is wholly sur- 
rounded by water, she cannot be strong among the 
nations of the world unless she has many ships. 
Therefore Japan, like England, is constantly developing 
her navy. The country is not very rich, and has hard 
work to get enough money to buy warships, which cost 
several million dollars apiece. Her people are very 
patriotic, however, and cheerfully pay taxes for the 
good of the country. The Japanese make fine sailors, 
and because of this the naval power of the country 

is growing. 

The Volcano of 
Fuji. When ocean 
steamers come near 
to Yokohama, the 
passengers always 
come out on deck, 
not only to see the 
beautiful scenery 
near at hand, but 
in the hope of 
seeing Fuji-san, or 
Fuji Mountain, 
A Japanese junk which is frequently 




JAPAN: THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN 195 

called Fuji-yama. There is no place in all Japan 
where one cannot see mountains if the air is fairly 
clear. Most of the mountains are not rough and rugged 
like the Alps, but soft and round and green, like the 
Appalachians of our southern states. Dense woods cover 
the lower portions, so that scarcely a rock can be seen. 
In the center of Japan, however, many mountains rise 
so high as to be bare and rocky, and of these Fuji is easily 
chief. It is a great volcano, more than 12,000 feet high. 
It is two thousand feet lower than Pikes Peak, but it 
rises in sight of the sea instead of from an inland plateau, 
and so it seems to be higher. During about half of the 
year its top is covered with snow, which, since the vol- 
cano is now quiet, does not melt. The Japanese are 
passionately fond of Fuji-san, and, in spite of the hard 
climb, make pilgrimages to its top. Everywhere on 
Japanese screens or bowls, or in pictures, the cone of Fuji 
is drawn, sometimes pure white, and sometimes pink or 
purple in the glow of the setting sun. 

The Climate of Japan. The mixture of sea and land 
and the universal presence of mountains are not the 
only factors which render the beauty of Japan unsur- 
passed. The other chief factor is the climate. Japan, 
like the portion of the United States from northern 
Florida to Maine, lies upor^ the eastern side of a great 
continent, in north latitude 30° to 46°, with a large 
ocean bounding it on the east. Hence its climate is 
much like that of our Atlantic states. In the south the 
coast of Japan is washed by the warm Kuro Shiwo. 
This current, like the Gulf Stream, comes from equa- 
torial regions and brings a large amount of heat. Winds 
blowing over this become warm and moist. When 
they reach the Japanese mountains, they rise, expand, 
grow cool, and give up abundant rain. This is especially 



196 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



the case in summer, when strong winds blow inward 
toward the center of Asia. Hence, southern Japan is not 
only warm, but very moist. North of Tokyo, which 
lies near the middle of Japan, the coast trends north 
and south instead of northeast and southwest. Here 
the clirq^te grows rapidly cooler as one goes northward, 
but still continues to be rainy. Yezo, the northern 
island, is quite cold, colder than Maine, which lies in the 
same latitude. The reason for this is that an Arctic 
current washes the northeast coast of Asia, just as one 
of the same sort borders the corresponding coast of North 
America. In A.merica the current is partly deflected 
oceanward by Newfoundland. In Asia, on the con- 
trary, it comes in full force to Yezo. Thus two opposing 
currents make Japan not only unexpectedly warm in the 
southern half, but unexpectedly cool in the north. In 




The valley through which the ascent of the volcano 
Asama-yama is made 



JAPAN: THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN 197 

winter the prevailing winds of Japan come from the 
northwest, from Siberia. They are cold and dry. In 




Lava covered with ashes at the top of the volcano Asama-yania 

crossing the Sea of Japan, however, they collect a fair 
amount of moisture, which is deposited as snow or rain, 
especially on the western side of the mountains. For- 
tunately for Japan the crest of the mountains lies nearer 
to the west coast than to the east, and thus the cold 
winds are cut off from much of the country. Naturally 
the side of the island exposed to the cold continental 
winds from Asia is less warm and productive than the 
southeast coast in the path of warm currents and oceanic 
winds. Consequently, the population of Japan is densest 
in the south along the eastern coast. In all parts of 
Japan the rainfall is sufficient to support abundant 
forests. In the most densely-populated parts the 
growth of trees is highly luxuriant. 

The Effect of Scenery. The mountains of Japan, 
the fair valleys, and the beautiful coasts, joined with the 



198 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

abundant forests and the splendid flowering trees and 
shrubs which are fostered by the warm, damp climate, 
have helped to make the Japanese the most artistic 
people in the world. Everybody, old and young, will 
stop to look at a pretty flower, a bright sunset, or a 
white cascade. In this respect we are barbarians com- 
pared with them, and they cannot help looking down 
upon us. Our guide books boast of the size and cost of 
our great buildings, the length of our railroads, and the 
vastness of our commerce. Theirs tell the traveler that 
a certain lake is most beautiful when the lotus lily is in 
bloom or that the time to visit a valley is when the light 
of the full moon may be seen upon the snow. Unfor- 
tunately the Japanese are forgetting some of their love 
of beauty, and are devoting much energy to the mad rush 
for wealth and business supremacy. 

The Dress and Appearance of the Japanese. Before 
we discuss Japan further, let us see how her people 
appear. The city streets are full of little people dressed 
in sober, tasteful colors, mostly brown and blue. A 
few wear European clothes, but the}^ do not look half so 
well as those in the true Japanese dress. Almost every- 
one is bareheaded, and it is noticeable that all the hair 
is jet black. That of the men is cut short, while that of 
the women is tied up in shining rolls covered with oil 
to keep it in place. The skin of all the people is smooth 
and of a yellowish-olive tint, Some of the children and 
country women have red cheeks, while the cheeks and 
lips of the cit}^ women are very much painted. The 
outer dress of all alike consists of a kimono — a long, 
loose sack with very large sleeves. The men wear 
small girdles or sashes, and the women large ones tied 
in huge bows behind. The children, even the little ones 
three years old, are dressed exactly like their fathers 



JAPAN: THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN 199 




A toy-trumpet peddler. Note that he is 
wearing wooden clogs 



and mothers, in loose and graceful clothing. In the 
country the men, and occasionally the women, who are 
hard at work in the 
rice fields or else- 
where, often wear 
nothing above the 
waist. The people 
are sensible, and 
dress for their 
work so they do 
not have to think 
about their clothes 
while laboring in 
the fields. 

Shoes Made by 
the Carpenter. The 
streets are very 
clean in dry weather, because no one is allowed to 
throw anything into them and there are no horses. 
As the Japanese walk along the streets, one hears a 
peculiar click, click, click. The sound comes from the 
wooden clogs, two or three inches high, which almost 
everyone wears. It is hard to walk in them, because 
they are so high and are so likely to fall off when not 
carefully fastened on. For this reason many of the 
Japanese, especially the women, have an awkward, 
shuffling gait. Coolies and people who are at work 
do not wear clogs. They are useful, because in rainy 
weather the streets get very muddy, and the clogs keep 
people out of the mud. Perhaps the Japanese would 
have leather shoes if they had cows and oxen, as we do, 
to furnish skins from which to make them. They have 
little leather, for reasons which we shall see later, and 
so the shoemakers use wood. 



200 , ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

The Cause of the Industry of the Japanese. Let us 

turn back now to the mountains, the sea, and the 
dimate of Japan, and see what influence these physical 
factors have had upon the gracefully-dressed little people 
in the wooden shoes. In spite of their beauty, the 
mountains are in some ways a hindrance to the progress 
of the country. They take up so much room that there 
is not much space where people can live and work. 
Plains are few and small and are located chiefly near the 
coast, with only a few in the interior. In the plains 
the population is very dense. In the mountainous 
parts of the country no one can live except in the narrow 
valleys ; so in all these parts the population is scanty. 
Not more than one-sixth of the whole country can be 
used for farms. 

Japan is somewhat larger than the United Kingdom, 
but the amount of land from which people can get food 
is only a little more than half as much as in that country. 
Yet the number of people in Japan is much greater than 
in Great Britain and Ireland. For many years the United 
Kingdom has brought from other countries a large part 
of the food for her people. Japan has not done this until 
within a few years. Therefore in the past it has been very 
hard to get enough food for all her inhabitants. Every 
bit of ground that could bear crops has been used ; and 
it has been necessary for everybody to work very hard. 
The people have done everything possible to enrich the 
soil, and to use all the plants and animals that can be 
made to furnish food. In this way the Japanese have 
become extremely industrious and economical. They 
work hard from morning until night, except on festival 
days. They use many unusual articles of food, such as 
seaweed, cuttlefish, whales, green bamboo tips, and other 
things which the nations of Europe and America have 



JAPAN: THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN 201 

never learned to employ, because they have not felt the 
need of using every possible kind of food. 

Fishing. It would be a bad thing for the Japanese if 
they could not eat fish. People need some food like meat 
which contains what are called proteids, substances full 
of nitrogen. Fish contains abundant proteids, and takes 
the place of other kinds of meat in Japan. Except in 
the remote interior, one can hardly go to a dinner where 
fish are not served in two or three different ways, both 
cooked and raw. That seems to us a queer habit, but 
it is no more queer than the American habit of eating 
raw oysters. In order that the fish may be fresh, they 
are kept in water until they are sold. Many miles from 
the sea, one often meets two men walking along with a 
great tub of live fish between them, hanging from a pole 
laid across their shoulders. Since animals for food are so 
rare, it is fortunate for Japan that the drowning of her 
coasts has formed so many islands, large and small, and 
so many bays and gulfs which make fishing easy. There 
are probably more kinds of fish on the coast of Japan 
than in any other area of the same size in the world. 

Cormorant Fishing. Sometimes a traveler has the 
good fortune to see Japanese fishermen using cormorants. 
The cormorant fishers go out at night in small boats, 
carrying bright torches. A very skillful fisherman has 
twelve birds. Cormorants are black, and resemble large 
sea gulls with long beaks, on the lower side of which are 
natural sacks in which the birds can stow away several 
fish. Cormorants are very greedy. Each bird has a 
cord fastened around its body and a loose metal ring 
around its throat. Holding the cords in his hand, the 
fisherman puts the birds into the water one by one, 
always in exactly the same order, beginning with the 
youngest. He takes them out from the water in the 



202 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

Opposite order, the oldest first, so that the young birds 
do the most work. The birds are so used to this order 
that they fight fiercely if it is changed, and the old birds 
punish the young ones for being in the wrong place. 
When all the birds are in the water, they swim quickly 
about in every direction, looking for fish. The fisher- 
man has to be very skillful to keep the cords from 
becoming twisted. When a bird catches a fish it tries 
to swallow it, but unless the fish is small this is impossi- 
ble because of the ring around the neck. If the fish is 
not swallowed, the bird keeps it in the bag under its 
beak. When the fisherman sees that the bags are full, 
he pulls in the birds, opens their beaks, and takes out 
the fish that have been caught. The fish are put into a 
tub of water, and the birds are let loose to catch more. 
Sometimes a single bird has been known to catch one 
hundred fifty fish in an hour, but this is uncommon. 

A Dinner without a Dining Room. Now that we are 
discussing food, let us see how the* Japanese take their 
meals and what they eat besides fish. There are no din- 
ing rooms in Japanese houses ; or perhaps we ought to say 
that every room is a dining room. People sleep, sit, work, 
and eat in the same rooms. At a Japanese inn or hotel, if 
a guest wants his dinner, he claps his hands or calls out, 
and some one answers "Hai!" Then a good-tempered, 
smiling girl comes with a little round table and sets it 
before him. On it she puts tiny cups of tea and thin little 
cakes slightly sweetened. Fine tea grows in Japan, and 
everyone drinks it in enormous quantities, but always out 
of small cups, and very slowly. Occasionally out of the 
most delicate tea leaves, that have been pounded, rich 
people actually make a kind of soup. It is bitter and is 
very bad for the nerves. As soon as a child is old enough 
to have anything but milk, he begins to drink tea. 



( 



JAPAN: THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN 203 

Japanese Food. When the dinner comes on, it consists 
of food which foreigners think very insipid until they 



Pi& 




wf ^ft' 1 ^^^^B^^^aDP^3 






^^^ 



Japanese women buying supplies from a vegetable cart 

become used to it. Sweetmeats of sugared beans, sweet 
rice, or perhaps chrysanthemum leaves are brought as the 
first course. Then come soups, boiled fish, raw fish, 
boiled vegetables, pickled vegetables, and at last plain 
boiled rice, which forms the main part of the meal. 
What we call dessert always comes first, and the 
main substantial food last. The Japanese eat large 
qua'ntities of pickles of many kinds, partly because the 
rice, of which they eat so much, is rather tasteless, and 
partly because people need sour or acid foods in hot, damp 
weather. In the country one of the commonest kinds of 
food is pickled radishes. These radishes are as big as a 
man's arm and are pure white. When pickled they 
smell most horribly — as bad as our Limburger cheese. 
The Japanese have a story of a blind man who had saved 
some money and hid it in a jar of pickled radish. A 
thief stole it. The blind man did not know what to do 



204 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

until suddenly a thought struck him. He made his friends 
call all the villagers and set them in a row Then he 
began to smell of their hands, and so found the thief who 
had put his hand in the pickles. 

Rice Culture. The Japanese eat rice even more than 
we eat bread. It is raised in all the lowland regions and 
upon terraces among the mountains. The rice plant 
requires a great deal of water. If Japan were not so 
rainy in summer, rice could not be raised so universally. 
It would not be possible to support so many people, for 
other plants, such as wheat, need more space in order to 
produce the same amount of food. The rice is planted 
in May or June in fields of half -liquid mud. After it has 
grown up two or three inches, it is transplanted into 
rows. Water is turned on to it from the brooks and 
rivers, and it lives most of the time in standing water. 
Women wade among the rows and keep out the weeds 
most carefully. The water of rice fields is full of short 
eels, which the Japanese are very fond of eating. 

Other Japanese Crops. Besides rice there are many 
other important products in Japan. One of the most 
famous is silk, obtained from the cocoons of caterpillars 
which are fed on leaves cut from the cultivated mulberry 
tree. The bamboo is one of the commonest of plants. 
From it the Japanese are able to make screens, hats, mats, 
sails for junks, pipes, paper, and ever so many other useful 
things. The camphor tree, also, is very valuable. The 
camphor is obtained from it by cutting the roots and stems 
into small pieces and boiling them. Still another famous 
plant is the lacquer tree, in which gashes are cut to 
allow the sap to flow out. From this is made the 
lacquer which we see so often on Japanese bowls. It is 
usually black, although it can be painted all manner 
of beautiful colors. This strange varnish will not grow 



JAPAN: THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN 20: 



hard in dry places, but has to be put in a damp place 
in order to harden and become dry. 

The Size of the Japanese. The Japanese are the 
shortest of all peoples aside from the pigmies of Africa, 
When one gets on a Japanese train, it seems as if all the 
railroad officials were boys. Very few of the Japanese men 
have mustaches or beards; and this, joined with their 
short stature, makes them look very young. On an aver- 
age the grown men are only as tall as American boys of 
about fourteen, and the women are still shorter. Almost 
everything in Japan is small in size. 

Jinrikishas: the Japanese "Pull-man Cars." When 
the traveler leaves the railroad station at such a place 
as Tokyo, the capital, he finds the streets full of little 
two-wheeled buggies like big baby carriages. Between 
the shafts stand short men called coolies, dressed in 
thin blue clothes which leave the arms and legs bare. 




A Japanese street <:r.ene. Notice the jinrikishas 



206 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



In his cloth girdle each man carries a blue towel with 
which to wipe the perspiration from his forehead. At 

the back of the 
j inrikisha , or " man- 
power cart," as the 
big baby carriage 
is called, there is 
a very broad straw 
hat which the coolie 
puts on w^hen it 
rains. The rest of 
the time he goes 
bareheaded. In- 
stead of getting in- 
to an electric car or 
into a carriage. the 
traveler takes a j in- 
rikisha, and away 
goes the coolie trot- 




4 Japanese eart carrying manure to 
fertilize the fields 



ting through the streets. Sometimes if the road is hilly 
or long, two coolies are in the shafts and one pushes 
behind. At first a foreigner feels very queer to be 
pulled around like a baby, but soon he gets used to it. 
In the streets scarcely a horse can be seen. Even 
heavy loads are pulled and pushed by men, four men 
sometimes being necessary for one cart. The distances 
that the men can trot are wonderful. It is a common 
thing for a man to go forty or fifty miles in a single day, 
trotting steadily all the way with a jinrikisha behind him. 
Scarcity of Horses and of Food Supply for Men. Until 
one understands the geography of Japan, it seems very 
odd that so civilized a nation should let men do the 
work of horses. There is a good reason for this, how- 
ever. In the first place, horses and cows and sheep 



JAPAN: THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN 207 

and other animals which eat grass do not thrive in 
Japan. On the mountains, which occupy' so large a part 
of the country, there is very little grass. The abundant 
summer rains, caused by the monsoons which blow in 
from the Pacific Ocean, make the country so wet that 
trees and bamboos and other large, coarse plants grow 
splendidly. In fact they grow so well that small grasses 
do not have an opportunity. Down in the plains, where 
the forests are cleared off, it would be possible t6 raise 
grass and grain for animals; but all the space is needed 
to raise food for the people. To raise food enough for 
one horse requires a space large enough to supply food 
for several men. If the Japanese used horses, some of 
the people would have to starve. So it is better to 
feed the people and let them do all the work. 

A few parts of Japan have a good many horses. 
These are the colder regions on the northwest coast 
among the mountains, and up in the northern island 
of Yezo 'where the climate is much like that of New 
England. In these places grass grows abundantly. 
There are not so many people in these regions as in 
other parts of Japan. In Yezo the horses run half wild 
much of the time. When they are kept in stables their 
heads are where the tails of our horses are. A horse is 
backed into his stall and led out, as is customary with 
us only in our fire-engine houses. It is much easier to 
feed horses when they are fastened in this way, and the 
danger of being kicked is much less than when they are 
tied in our fashion. 

The Scarcity of Meat. What has just been said about 
the scarcity of grass and of animals which eat grass 
explains why the Japanese eat little meat and much fish. 
They cannot eat meat because they cannot raise the 
necessary animals. A few years ago it was the fashion 



2o8 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

in Japan to imitate European and American customs. 
Many people tried to eat meat. It was sold by the 
ounce instead of by the pound, as with us. On the whole 
the people do not care much for it, and it is used chiefly 
in the cities. In addition to the scarcity of animals there 
is another reason why beef is not eaten. The Japanese 
are mostly Buddhists, although not very faithful ones, 
and Buddhism forbids the killing of animals, especially 
of cows and oxen. In India it forbids the killing of fish 
and birds also ; but the Japanese do not pay any attention 
to this, and fish and birds are part of their regular diet. 

A good story is told of some Japanese hunters, who 
live among the mountains and hunt deer. A traveler 
noticed that they ate the meat of the deer. "Don't 
you know that your religion forbids you to eat such 
meat?" "Oh no, it doesn't," they answered. "The deer 
is not an animal , but a fish . " " How can that be ? " asked 
the traveler. "The deer looks like an animal to me." 
"Oh," was the reply, "you don't know much about our 
language. In Japanese one name of deer is 'mountain 
whale.' So the whale is a fish, and we are allowed to 
eat fish." 

Houses Whose Walls Are All Windows. In Japan it is 
not surprising to find the shops all having the whole front 
open to the street. That is the case in most parts of Asia. 
It is very surprising, however, to see many of the houses 
open. They look as though they consisted of nothing 
but heavy roofs supported by pillars. Looking inside 
them, one sees in one house a mother cooking dinner over 
a little square pot full of charcoal, while two children are 
playing on the white floor. In another a girl is dressing, 
and a man is plaiting a mat out of bamboo straw. In 
still another place a family is eating dinner, resting on 
their knees on the floor, each one with a little square table 



JAPAN: THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN 209 



a foot high before him. In a neighboring building a great 
many people are bathing, men on one side and women 
on the other. No one seems to care at all that the 
houses are open. The people in the streets pay no atten- 
tion to what is happening in the houses, and those in the 
houses do not seem to know that any one can see them. 
It is all part of the great politeness of the Japanese. 
Many people think that the open character of the houses 
is one reason why the Japanese are so polite. They are 
obliged to "have on their company manners," as we say, 
all the time. A boy cannot be very polite to his sister 
on the street and slap her at home, as he sometimes does 
in America ; neither can a girl have a sweet smile in coni- 
pany and a sulky face at home. At least, if either of 
them does these things all the neighbors will know it. 

The Japanese houses have walls of a sort, as one sees 
plainly at night. 
The walls are 
merely thin paper 
screens for the 
inner parts of the 
house and heavy 
wooden shutters for 
the outside. The 
shutters are some- 
thing like those 
which we have on 
the outside of shop 
windows, except 
that they move 
sidewise instead of 
up and down. 
When thev are up -^^^ interior of a Japanese house, 

, -^ ^' showing mats screens, and 

the houses are dark open walls 





H 


■ 


^ ^,^5^ 


«, ^4 


^P^HH 




~-jM^ 


■•"^YtJEB^H 


j-pfl 






^^^^■■■ii 


Jl 


w\ 




1 


U 



2IO 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



and little air can get in. Therefore they must be taken 
down every day. In many cases, when the shutters 




Hotels in the beautiful Nikko region. Notice the shutters 

have all been taken down, the smaller houses are quite 
open and people can look in from the street. Of course 
there are now in Japan many houses like those in 
America, but these are not common outside of the large 
cities. The inside of a Japanese house can be divided 
into as many rooms as the owner happens to choose on 
any particular day. The floor is covered with beautiful, 
thick mats of yellowish rice straw. They are all of 
just the same size and shape — about six feet long by 
three feet wide, and three inches thick. Paper screens 
are made to slide between the mats, dividing the house 
into oblong or square rooms of any desired size. The 
Japanese speak of a room as being so many mats in 
size. Thus an eight-mat room is one having eight mats 
to cover its floor It can be divided into two four-mat 
rooms, or can be joined to others to form a larger room. 



JAPAN: THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN 211 

Monsoon Rains and the Necessity for Open Houses. 

The openness of the houses is almost a necessity. In 
summer the monsoon rains fall heavily, especially on 
the Pacific coast from Sendai to Tokyo and westward, 
where most of the people live. This region, as we have 
seen, is so far south and is washed by such a strong ocean 
current from the equator that the summers are very 
warm. Therefore, from June to September the air is 
wet and sticky a large part of the time. If shoes or 
clothes are put away in boxes, they mold in a few days. 
It is necessary for the houses to be open in order to 
keep them sweet and fresh. 

Earthquakes and Houses. Earthquakes as well as 
the monsoon rains have a good deal to do with the way 
in which Japanese houses are built. Japan is the land 
of earthquakes. Scarcely a week passes without a small 
one in some region, and during some years there have 
been as many as two thousand. Most are too small to 
do any damage or even to be felt except by delicate 




One of the temples of Nikko 



212 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

instruments ; but many are strong enough to shake down 
houses, especially if they are built stiffly like ours, with 
solid walls. The light Japanese houses are not easily 
shaken down because they have no stiff walls. Even if 
they do fall, the loss is slight, since they are very inex- 
pensive. Only the roof is heavy enough to hurt people 
if it falls on them. In Japan it would be foolish to build 
heavy buildings of stone. This explains why Japan has 
so few wonderful temples or public buildings like those 
of Greece, the only European country whose people were 
ever so artistic as those of Japan. If they wished to use 
stone, the Japanese could get it, provided they took a 
good deal of trouble; but they do not need it. The 
heavy summer rains and the warm summer climate cause 
trees of all kinds to grow luxuriantly, and the light, strong 
bamboo is found almost everywhere. Thus it is easy 
to find splendid material for bouses adapted to a land of 
earthquakes. 

Typhoons and Heavy Roofs. Foreigners often wonder 
at the great roofs of Japanese houses, w^hich look very 
top-heavy. Often the wide-spreading roof is first put 
together on the ground. Then it is taken to pieces; 
the slender lower part of the house is built, and finally 
the roof is put together again in its proper place. The 
roofs need to be heavy, partly to keep out the rain and 
partly to prevent the houses from being blown away 
by typhoons. The typhoons are tremendous storms of 
wind and rain which sweep up the Pacific coast from the 
Philippine Islands. The rain falls in drenching floods and 
the wind blows furiously. The Japanese houses seem 
queer to us, and they would be queer in America; but in 
a country of heavy summer rains, earthquakes, and 
typhoons they are much more sensible than houses of 
our stvle would be. 



JAPAN: THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN 213 




Fires and "Godowns." Japanese houses take fire 
very easily. If a match is dropped on one of the thick 
mats, a fire is likely 
to start, and nothing 
can readily stop it. 
One house of light 
wood and straw sets 
another on fire, and 
not infrequently bum 
whole villages. In 
Tokyo there have 
been several fires in 
which 10,000 houses 
were burned. As the 
houses are inexpen- 
sive and can be built 
again quickly, the loss 
from fire is nothing 
like as large as it would be in America. Of course when 
there is a fire, everything that is in the houses is destroyed. 
Accordingly, the Japanese keep most of their valuable 
property in fireproof, air-tight buildings made of plaster. 
After a fire these "godowns," as they are called by 
foreigners, all remain standing uninjured. Sometimes 
the owners of houses keep all the wood and mats for a 
new house ready in the godown. A house can be 
put up so quickly after a fire that the Japanese jokingly 
say that if a man hurries too much in rebuilding his 
burned house, the same fire which burned the first one will 
come back with a different wind and burn the second. 

Japanese Furniture and Shoes. In a Japanese house 
there is almost no furniture. The people sleep on the 
mats which form the floor, putting a quilt or two below 
them and others above them for warmth. They sit on 



A coolie dressed in Ins straw rain 
coat and hat 



214 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

the floor to read or write or talk, squatting always on 
their knees with their feet under them. As a rule 
Japanese houses are beautifully clean. There are, of 
course, some dirty people, but not many. Upon enter- 
ing a Japanese house one must take off his shoes. It 
would never do to walk over the clean mats with dirty 
feet. It would be like walking on the beds and chairs 
in our houses. That is one reason why wooden shoes 
are worn so universally. They keep people's feet up out 
of the mud, and they can be taken off easily and left 
at the door when one enters a house. 

The Japanese tell a good story of a man from the 
country who had never seen a railroad train. When he 
was to travel on a train for the first time, he took off his 
shoes before getting in and left them on the platform, 
just as he would at the door of a friend's house. At the 
end of his journey he was much surprised not to find them 
outside the door at the foot of the steps. He thought 
that the platform and station went along with the train. 

Ornaments in the Houses. The Japanese have many 
beautiful ornaments, but they do not fill their houses 
with them as we do. A man who owns several fine 
pictures brings out one at a time and keeps it in the 
house for a while and then changes it for another. This 
custom has grown up because it is not safe to keep 
valuable articles in the houses, where they are in great 
danger of being burned. Although the custom had so 
commonplace an origin, it has had a fine effect upon the 
Japanese. It has taught them that there is more 
pleasure in one beautiful thing which is really studied 
than in a hundred which are merely set out for show. 
If a beautiful picture or a rare piece of china is brought 
out, the whole family enjoy it for a few days or weeks, 
and learn to appreciate its beauty. The Japanese think 



JAPAN: THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN 215 

that we have very poor taste, because we want to fill our 
houses with ornaments. Often we do not care whether 
the ornaments are genuinely beautiful, provided they 
make a show. When the Japanese bring an ornament 
into their houses, they do it because they love beauty. 
A man may have a thousand precious objects of art, 
but his house is almost as simple as that of his neighbor 
who has only ten. This way of life saves the Japanese 
a great amount of fretting and worry and jealousy. 

The Love of Flowers. Since the people of Japan have 
learned to be simple in their houses, they are simple in 
other things, but they are always artistic. We often 
arrange flowers in big, gaudy bouquets with the flowers 
all pushed together. They think that a single loose 
spray is much more beautiful than any more crowded 
arrangement. We value flowers that are out of season, 
and think that the winter roses or pinks, which cost a 
small fortune, are the most beautiful. They think that 
flowers are most beautiful at the time when they- natu- 
rally bloom. It is not in good taste to decorate the 
house with flowers which are out of season. 

The art of decoration is valued so highly that part 
of the education of every girl of good family is a course in 
the arrangement of flowers. So fond are the Japanese 
of flowers that they have flower holidays. In the spring 
all the people, from the old man down to the youngest 
child, go out to look at the cherry blossoms. The fruit of 
the cherry tree is very sour and poor in Japan, and is 
hardly worth eating ; but the people love the blossoms so 
much that cherry trees are cultivated everywhere. We 
have taught the Japanese how to build railroads, steam- 
ships, and factories, and a host of other good things; we 
might profitably learn from them how to enjoy beauty 
and how to live contentedly amid simple surroundings. 



2i6 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

Bathing and Cleanliness. The Japanese are the clean- 
est people in the world. In Tokyo a quarter of the 
inhabitants go to one or another of the eight hundred or 
more large public baths every day, and most of the rest 
bathe daily in their own homes. A traveler once came 
to a village where the people are in the habit of bathing in 
the water of some hot springs. An* old villager apolo- 
gized for the dirtiness of himself and his neighbors. 
"We are very busy now, during the summer, and we 
have time to bathe only twice a day," he said. "How 
often do you bathe in winter?" asked the traveler. 
"Oh, four or five times a day," was the answer. "The 
children get into the bath whenever they feel cold." 

Usually the baths are so hot that foreigners cannot 
stand the heat at first. The tubs used in private houses 
are round and small, only large enovigh to sit down in, 
not to lie in. The water is kept hot during the bath by 
a copper pipe placed at one edge and filled with burning 
charcoal. Sometimes the pipe is not protected by a 
board, and the bather has to be careful not to touch it 
and burn himself. 

If people bathe in water which is merely warm and 
then go out of doors in winter, they take cold ; but if the 
water is hot, it does no harm. One odd thing about 
Japanese baths is that several people bathe in the same 
water, one after another. This is not so bad as it seems, 
since no one scrubs himself in the bath but does that 
when he comes out. 

Hot Springs. One reason for the frequent baths is 
that Japan contains a great number of hot springs. 
The country is full of volcanoes, as might be expected 
where earthquakes are so frequent. Near the volcanoes 
there are usually many springs of hot water. By 
using these the Japanese first found out the advantage 



JAPAN: THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN 217 

of hot baths. Bathing is more necessary in Japan than 
in many countries, for in summer the air is so warm and 
damp that people's clothes become wringing wet with 
perspiration whenever they do any active work. Hence, 
it is necessary to bathe often in order to keep clean and 
sweet. In such a climate loose clothes like those of the 
Japanese are far better than ours. People such as 
coolies who are pulling jinrikishas, or men and women 
who are working in the fields, become so hot and wet 
that they are most uncomfortable and dirty if they wear 
many clothes. So it is wise for them to wear as few 
as possible. 

The Most Polite People in the World. In all the Japa- 
nese streets and everywhere else one notices how polite 
the people are. When two peasant acquaintances meet 
on the way to market, they stop and bow low several 
times. If two friends meet in the street, they put 
their hands on their knees and bow again and again, 
bending over till their heads are on a level with their 
hips, while they pull in their breath with a sucking 
noise, as a mark of respect. If they meet in the house, 
they get down on their knees and keep touching their 
heads to the floor. When they talk about themselves, 
they always say "My unworthy self!" or "My wretched 
house!" or use some other expression indicating that 
they are very poor and worthless. The other person is 
always spoken of as very worthy. For instance, a 
man invites his friend to dinner in this way: "Will 
your most honorable self deign to honor my miserable 
table with the light of your gracious presence?" Even 
the children use these forms, which are so common that 
no one thinks of them as having any special meaning. 
They use them just as we write "My dear sir," to a man 
whom we have never seen. 



2l8 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



Japanese politeness is not confined to words. A 
traveler tells this story. One day he and a friend went 
in swimming on a very rocky part of the seashore. 
While they were far out in the water swimming, some 
workmen came along and stopped by their clothes. 
The traveler thought they would steal something, but 
his Japanese companion said not to worry. When they 
swam ashore, they found that the workmen had gone 
on, leaving two soft mats for them to dress on in place of 
the rough stones. The laborers would have felt insulted 

if the bathers had 
offered them any 
money when they 
took the mats back 
after dressing. The 
Japanese were so po- 
lite that they really 
wanted the strangers 
to be comfortable. 

Children's Games. 
Japan has been called 
the "Children's Para- 
dise." It is certainly 
a good place for them, 
and they are always polite. Fathers and mothers go 
everywhere with their children on festival days. The 
best day for the girls is the "Feast of Dolls," on the third 
day of the third month. On that day every girl baby 
born during the year receives two dolls. The older 
girls, too, often receive presents. When a girl carries her 
doll, she puts it on her back inside her kimono, with its 
head sticking out over her shoulder. That is the way 
in which babies are carried. One of the things which 
girls enjoy most is the "cooking man," who comes around 




Japanese children in charge of a 
child nurse 



JAPAN: THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN 219 

on feast days with a toy kitchen. Tlie stove has a real 
fire in it. A girl's father pays a few cents to the man, and 
the girl can cook griddlecakes and other foods just the 
right size for dolls. 

The great day for boys is the "Feast of Flags," on the 
fifth day of the fifth month. If a boy has been born in 
a house during the year, a great paper fish is floated 
over the house. The boys receive presents of drums 
and swords and other warlike toys. In February and 
March, when it is windy, the boys fly kites. They dip 
the upper fifteen or twenty feet of kite string in glue 
and then in powdered glass so that the fragments cling 
to the string. Then they have kite fights. Two boys 
fly their kites together. Each one tries to get his to go 
in such a way that he can cut the other boy's string 
with ;^e glass on his own string. It is quite exciting 
when* a string is cut and a big kite comes toppling down 
to the ground. In many of the games the boys who are 
beaten have their faces marked with ink, while the girls 
have to put pieces of paper in their hair. 

On festival days one of the most interesting sights is 
the "bug man," who has tame beetles which pull little 
carts full of rice. Other men have irregular wads of 
paper. When these are put into water, they unfold into 
pretty little flowers and birds or into animals and men. 
Still others have small wooden ducks and geese. When 
these are put into water, they swim around as if alive. 
Camphor has been stuck to them on one side, and when 
this dissolves it makes the little animals move. 

Japan and Her People. Altogether Japan is a delight- 
ful countr}^ Nature is everywhere charming, whether 
one looks at the blue bays studded with islands or the 
green mountains clothed with luxuriant trees far up 
toward the snowy top of Fuji and the other volcanoes. 



220 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



In some parts of the world the works of man are far from 
harmonious with nature, but Japan has few of the ugly 






''^ 



mm 



mm; 



A typical Japanese garden. Artistic landscape gardening is 
characteristic of Japan 

factory towns and smoking furnaces which disfigure so 
many parts of Europe and America. For the most part 
the Japanese towns and villages, with their heavy-roofed 
wooden houses, fit into the landscape perfectly. So, too, 
do the tastefully dressed people, with their gentle ways 
and determined spirit. Nothing in all Japan is more 
charming than the universal politeness, even in the midst 
of crowds and discomfort. The Japanese are such polite 
people that now, as we say good-by to them, we may 
well imitate their custom, and bow low three times to 
the so-called "Yankees of the East." 



CHAPTER XIX 

CHINA: THE OLDEST OF NATIONS 

The Civilization of China. Two thousand years ago the 
people of northern and central Europe were barbarians 
who spent most of their time in hunting and fighting. 
They dressed in skins and lived largely on the flesh of 
wild animals. To-day their descendants, the English, 
French, Germans, and other races of western Europe, are 
the most civilized nations in the world. When our an- 
cestors were ignorant savages living in rude huts, the 
Chinese were already highly civilized. They lived in well- 
built houses, wore silk clothes, and knew how to read and 
write. They possessed schools, orphanages, and hospitals, 
and were governed peacefully and justly. Long before 
our ancestors thought of such things, the Chinese had 
devised the art of printing and invented gunpowder and 
the compass. They learned that the best way to settle 
quarrels was by arbitration rather than by blows. 

After doing all this, the Chinese ceased to make 
progress, and have stood still for centuries. Europe 
and America, on the contrary, have progressed rapidly, 
leaving the Asiatics far behind. To-day, however, the 
Chinese are beginning to wake up. In a few hundred 
years they may once more be far ahead of us, unless 
we learn to practice greater industry, patience, and 
economy, the three great virtues of China. 

The Isolation of China. Most boys and girls know 
how hard it is to study without a teacher, for instance 
during the summer vacation. If two or three children 
study together it is much easier than for one alone ; yet 
even so it is difficult to make much progress unless there 



222 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

is some one from whom to ask questions. For ages 
China has been like a pupil working alone and with- 
out a teacher. 

The nations of modem Europe had Greece and Rome 
as teachers in some things and the Israelites and other 
races as teachers in other matters. And besides this they 
taught one another. When the French mastered some 
new fact, the English and Germans soon learned it from 
them. At other times the French were the learners, 
and so the countries of Europe made progress all together. 

For thousands of years China has been separated 
from other nations, or else has been so much in advance 
of those around her that she could learn little from 
them. Long, long ago her people became so highly civi- 
lized that all the nations near them were barbarians 
in comparison. Little by little, China taught Japan, 
Chosen, Siam, and some of the islands of the sea. These 
countries adopted the Chinese mode of writing, the 
Chinese form of ancestor worship, and many other Chinese 
customs and arts. In some things Japan went far ahead 
of China; but the Chinese, foolishly, looked down upon 
their former pupils and would not learn from them. 
Then the Japanese shut themselves up in their islands 
for centuries and almost never went to China. 

Former Chinese Ideas of Europe. When Europeans 
first visited China, the Chinese called them "barbarians" 
or "foreign devils." Books were printed in which Euro- 
peans were pictured as being like monkeys or apes, or 
as strange men having their heads on their breasts, ears 
a foot long, and only one eye apiece in the middle of 
the forehead. People in Europe had equally queer ideas 
of the Chinese, and there are old books in our libraries 
which say that they have hoofs like horses. At length, 
about a hundred years ago, the Chinese and Europeans 



CHINA: THE OLDEST OF NATIONS 223 

began to learn that they are much aUke — even if the 
Chinese do have yellow skins while the Europeans, as 
the Chinese say, have red skins. At first the Chinese did 
not understand the strength and civilization of the rude 
barbarians who simply nodded their heads instead of 
bowing politely to the ground in Chinese fashion. When 
ambassadors first came from Europe, the Chinese tried 
to compel them to act as if the Chinese Emperor were 
their ruler, and to worship him by falling on their 
knees and knocking their heads on the floor nine times. 
High officials believed that England was a single city, 
and that America and Europe were little provinces 
which had once paid tribute to China. Now all this is 
changed. China and the remainder of the world have 
learned to know one another. The steamboat is the 
chief agent of the change. 

Causes of the Isolation of China: Desert Barriers on 
the Northwest. In the old days China was shut off 
from the rest of the world. On the west and north lay the 
deserts of Chinese Turkistan and Mongolia and the almost 
uninhabitable region of eastern Siberia. Europeans 
almost never crossed the deserts, the only inhabitants 
of which were Tartar and Mongol nomads. Often the 
nomads suffered from lack of food for their cattle and 
themselves. Then they invaded China in hordes, 
and sometimes they conquered the country and ruled it 
for centuries. The present Emperor is a Manchu, whose 
ancestors invaded China in just this way more than two 
hundred fifty years ago. The Chinese did not learn 
much from the nomads, for the invaders were uncivilized 
and began at once to copy the Chinese. 

The Great Wall. Two thousand years ago a Chinese 
emperor wanted to stop the invasions of barbarians, so 
he built a great wall, which still stands. The traveler 



2 24 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



who goes to Peking can easily go out by rail to Shan- 
haikuan, two hundred miles to the northeast, and see it. 




The Great Wall of China 

It consists of two thick walls of gray bricks made of clay. 
Between the walls stone and earth have been packed 
until the whole is one solid mass. The entire structure 
is twenty-five feet wide, or somewhat wider than an 
ordinary house; and its height is thirty feet, which 
equals that of a two-story house with an attic. On top 
of the wall large towers rise thirty or forty feet higher. 
From the sea, east of Peking, this huge wall extends 
far away to the west to the great desert of the Tarim 
Basin. Its length, including the many windings, is 
about 1,700 miles. In America such a wall would 
extend almost from Buffalo to Santa Fe. The Romans, 
when they ruled England, built a similar but far smaller 
wall as protection against the warlike Picts of Scotland. 
Mountainous Barriers on the West and South. On 
the southwest side of China nature itself has made a 
wall.- South of Chinese Turkistan the great Tibetan 
Plateau can be crossed only with the greatest difficulty. 



CHINA: THE OLDEST OF NATIONS 225 

Farther to the south, in Burma and Siam, great moun- 
tain ranges and fever-laden valleys almost prevent all 
access to China from India. Native travelers are des- 
perately afraid to spend the night in the deep gorges 
of the Salwm and Mekong rivers. The roads which 
they must traverse are extremely bad; and when they 
reach the hot, steamy valley bottoms, those who have 
come from the cool air of the high mountains on either 
side often contract fever and die. 

The Sea as a Barrier on the East. On the eastern 
side China is bordered by the sea. Until the invention 
of steamships the broad ocean kept foreigners from the 
Western World away. Thus the Middle Kingdom, as 
the Chinese proudly call their country, was for thou- 
sands of years cut off from all the world except a few 
small nations v/ho were her pupils. Few people went 
out of China, and few came in. The number of inhabi- 
tants kept growing, but no new ideas arose. Thus the 
largest and oldest of civilized nations stood still, keeping 
its own peculiar customs and becoming in consequence 
more and more unlike the rest of the world. 

The Physical Form of China. On a physical map of 
China the Khingan Escarpment is seen to continue 
south-southwestward from Manchuria, past Peking, 
to Hwaiking-fu on the Hwang-ho, the great river of 
northern China. From there the escarpment continues 
irregularly as the edge of the high mountains of Inner 
Asia. Proceeding in the same southwesterly direction, 
it crosses the Yangtse River at the gorge above Ichang. 
Thence it passes through the remote province of 
Kweichou to the southwestern comer of the plateau 
province of Yunnan, in east longitude 106°, not far from 
the Tropic of Cancer. With the exception of the valley 
of the Hwang-ho, from the escarpment westward to 



J 



226 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



Singan-fu, and of the Red Basin of Siichwaji on the 
upper Yangtse, the densely populated portion of China 




The entrance to village in north China 



lies to the east of the Khingan Escarpment and its 
nameless continuation. This area occupies about the 
same position in the continent of Asia that the portion 
of the United States east of the St. Lawrence, Ohio, and 
Mississippi rivers occupies in the continent of America. 
These two corresponding regions are of about the same 
size, and lie in about the same latitude, so that they 
enjoy essentially the same temperature. The Chinese 
region, however, is far more densely populated. The 
reason for this is found partly in the form of the land 
and partly in the climate. 

The part of China east of the escarpment is divided 
naturally into four regions. The two northern are the 
great alluvial plains of the Hwang-ho and Yangtse- 
kiang. For hundreds of miles, from beyond Peking in 
the north to south of Shanghai in the south, the plains 
are almost unbroken. Everywhere the soil is highly 
fertile. Hence, it is possible for a great number of people 



CHINA: THE OLDEST OF NATIONS 227 

to be supported by farming. The third region com- 
prises the mountainous country four or five hundred 
miles wide which lies south of the Yangtse-kiang. 
Fortunately for the Chinese the mountains are com- 
paratively old. Accordingly, they have been worn down 
to a rather low height and are well covered with soil. 
It is fortunate also that they lie south of latitude 
30°. If they were located farther north, or if they were 
higher, the climate would render agriculture relatively 
difficult, and the population could not be dense. As it 
is, most parts of the mountains can be cultivated. 

On the steeper slopes terraces are constructed, and 
it is almost as easy to raise crops among the mountains 
as on the plains. Accordingly, this region is much more 
densely peopled than is any other extensive mountain- 
ous country in the world. The fourth and most southern 
division of China consists of the basin of the Si-kiang. 
It is partly mountainous and partly plain, but every- 
where the region is capable of supporting great numbers 
of people. 

The Climate of China. The climate of China, even 
more than the isolation of the country and the form of 





Jh- ■■■■m 





A village among the mountains of south China 



228 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

the land, has a tremendous effect upon the habits and 
character of the Chinese. If China, like the correspond- 
ing latitudes of Southwestern Asia, received its rainfall 
chiefly in winter, the population might not be more 
than a tenth as great as at present, and the mode of life 
of the people would be wholly different from what it 
now IS. The great size .of the continent of Asia, as 
we have seen in other cases, causes the land to fall 
to a very low temperature during the winter and to 
become greatly heated in summer. This occasions 
high barometric pressure in winter and low pressure 
in summer Accordingly, in the cold season the pre- 
vailing winds of eastern Asia blow outward, not only 
in Manchuria, Chosen, and Japan, but also in China 
Proper The winter winds are cold and dry, because 
they come from the interior In northern China they 
sweep down as bitter gales from the northwest. In 
southern China they are not so cold, but they bring 
frosts to Hong-kong and make the winters comparatively 
bracing as far south as the Tropic of Cancer. This is an 
excellent thing for the Chinese, for it imparts energy to 
those who live in latitudes where the continuous heat 
is likely to induce inactivity and laziness. 

In summer the winds blow inward from the south or 
southeast. Since the climatic belts of the earth follow 
the sun from south to north in the spring, the winds 
from the ocean reach southern China earlier than 
northern China. In the south they begin as early as 
April. As the warm, damp, in -blowing winds rise over 
the mountains of southern China, they expand and grow 
cool so rapidly that they give up large amounts of rain. 
Hence, luxuriant vegetation and dense population 
prevail not only in the plains of the Si-kiang, but among 
the mountains of the southern half of China. Farther 



CHINA: THE OLDEST OF NATIONS 229 

north the rain comes later, and in northern China it 
does not arrive until June. As a rule, however, it comes 
in time to enable rich crops to grow in all the plains, 
although here the mountains are not so productive. In 
the regions where the rain is delayed till June forests 
are scarce. Trees require a long growing season. In the 
spring neither they nor any other plants can begin to 
grow until the refreshing rains arrive. After the coming 
of the rain the season is too short for the trees to make 
their proper growth. Therefore, forests are confined to 
the moister places, and the mountains as a whole are 
naked and barren, quite unlike the beautifully-forested 
and densely-peopled mountains of the south. 

The Density of Population in China. In the preceding 
paragraphs we have spoken of the great density of the 
population of China. This is evidently due to the three 
factors which have just been discussed; namely, the 
isolation of China, the form of the land, and the climate. 
The isolation of the country has made it difficult for the 
inhabitants to migrate to other lands, as the people of 
Europe have been doing for the past three hundred 
years, since America and Australia began to be settled. 
Hence, they have stayed at home and increased in 
number. Moreover, because of the barriers on all sides 
China has not suffered so severely from devastating 
wars as have some other countries whose populations 
have thereby been diminished at frequent intervals. 
The effect of the form of the land upon the density 
of population in China is evident. The plains of the 
north are so fertile and easily tilled that they naturally 
support millions of people. The mountains are chiefly 
in the south where the temperature is such that their 
elevation does not cause them to be unfruitful If the 
plains were in the south and the mountains in the north, 



23© ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

the number of inhabitants could not be so great as now. 
The plains would be warm, swampy, and unhealthful to a 
much greater extent than at present, and the mountains 
would be too cold to produce abundant crops, even 
though their slopes are gentle and the soil deep. Finally 
the third and most important factor in promoting 
density of population in China is the summer rains 
caused by in-blowing monsoon winds. Sometimes the 
winds fail and the rains are scanty. Then, as we shall 
see, great numbers of people die from famine, and the 
population is reduced. 

The density of the Chinese population has had many 
different results. For instance, the scarcity of land has 
led fathers to divide their fields among their sons time 
and again, in successive generations. Hence, to-day the 
fields are remarkably small and irregular in shape. 
Often a farm consists of only four or five acres divided 
into little patches not much bigger than city house lots 
and scattered in various places. The necessity for land is 
so great that the roads, especially in the plains, consist 
of merely the narrowest paths, just wide enough for a 
man or a wheelbarrow. Often the paths are extremely 
crooked, because the owners of fields keep encroaching 
upon them in the attempt to get a little more land. It 
is said that when a dishonest man and a careless neigh- 
bor live side by side, the former often moves the bound- 
ary stones of his field steadily over into his neighbor's 
field, a foot this year, a foot next, and so on, until he has 
stolen fifteen or twenty feet of good land without being 
noticed. 

Another result of the density of the population of 
China is the unparalleled industry of the Chinese. No 
other nation in the world works so hard. Men, women, 
and children work most of the time. People who have 



CHINA: THE OLDEST OF NATIONS 



231 




Industrious Chinese coolies carry- 
ing coal 



SO little land in proportion to the number of inhabi- 
tants must of sheer necessity work hard or else starve. 
Moreover they must 
be very economical, 
a trait which the 
Chinese possess to a 
high degree. It is 
often said that a 
Chinese family could 
live on what an ordi- 
nary American family 
throws away. This 
is an exaggeration, 
but, nevertheless, the 
Chinese have learned 
to save everything. 
Except among those who are comparatively wealthy, 
they do not throw old pieces of cloth into the rag bag, as 
we do. On the contrary they save them, and patch their 
clothes until it is hard to tell which are the patches and 
which the clothes. Food is never thrown away in our 
reckless fashion, and everything that can possibly be eaten 
is always saved. Many things which we do not consider 
edible are esteemed by the Chinese. For instance they 
use fishskin and several kinds of seaweed, and poor people 
eat the flesh of certain animals such as dogs. All this 
is due entirely to the fact that the inhabitants are so 
numerous that every possible source of food must be 
utilized. 

The Poverty of China. From what has just been 
said, it is evident that the Chinese are a poor nation. 
Their poverty is largely the result of the density of 
population. Little by little during the thousands of 
years of their existence the Chinese have learned how to 



232 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

live in such a way that the largest number of people are 
suppoited on the smallest possible amount of land. 
They have come to rely for food upon crops which yield 
the greatest leturn per acre. Accordingly, the people 
do not eat much meat and wheat. Except in the far 
northwest where the country is relatively dry and not 
densely inhabited, wheat fields and flocks or herds are 
as scarce as in Japan, and for the same reasons. In the 
north and in some parts of the south millet takes the 
place of wheat, but the commonest food is rice. Meat 
is replaced, as one would expect, by beans and peas and 
other pulses. Such a diet is good in times of plenty, 
but bad when famines come, as they so often do in 
China. 

In countries where the people eat wheat and meat and 
feed their animals with grain, there is much less distress 
from scanty crops than in China. If necessary, the 
inhabitants of such lands can kill the animals, and not 
only eat their flesh, but use for food the grain that 
would have been fed to the live stock. In China when the 
crops fail, there is absolutely nothing to fall back upon, 
and the people starve. This fact has had much to do 
with making the Chinese unprogressive. They have 
been discouraged time after time by recurring famine 
or disaster and have not been able to overcome such a 
handicap. For the same reason the Chinese are likely 
to be slow in taking a prominent place in the world's 
affairs. On the whole they are too poor and unpro- 
gressive to rise into sudden prominence like their 
neighbors, the Japanese. It must be remembered, 
however, that the economy and industry of the Chinese 
are characteristics which may sometime make them one 
of the most powerful nations of the world. At present 
these qualities have not yet played an important part 



I 



CHINA: THE OLDEST OF NATIONS 233 

because the Chinese are so slow to adopt new methods. 
Many of the leaders, however, are progressive. 

The Diversity and Unity of China. There is great 
diversity in China. The dry mountains of the north 
present a totally different appearance from the bamboo- 
covered slopes of the far south, and the rich plains and 
rice fields of the mouth of the Yangtse contrast strongly 
with the almost impassable and uninhabitable valleys 
on the borders of the plateau of Yunnan. The people, 
too, differ greatly in the various parts. Their customs, 
language, and dress all differ. In some places, such as the 
almost inaccessible mountains of the province of Kwei- 
chou in the southwest, the mountains are inhabited by 
aboriginal races wholly different from the Chinese. 

Nevertheless, China as a whole possesses remarkable 
similarity in all parts. It is diverse but by no means 
so diverse as India, for example. Everywhere except 
among the aborigines the same form of Buddhism, 
modified by the teachings of Confucius, prevails. The 
whole country looks to Peking as its head, and the 
language of Peking is used everywhere by officials and 
men of education. In spite of the differences between 
the various parts, China is not sharply divided into 
distinct physical provinces. One region shades off into 
another; there are almost no large uninhabited areas; 
and there is no part of the country where it is impossible 
to travel. Because of this it has been possible to send 
out officials year after year from Peking to all of the out- 
lying provinces. They have taken with them the ideas 
of the capital and have spread them through the 
country. In the same way, merchants have always 
been in the habit of traveling to all sections. If it had 
been necessary to cross extensive uninhabited areas 
or to go to places where there was a sudden change from 



234 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

one type of country to another, this would not have been 
so easy. Everywhere, however, the merchants found 
people from v/hom to buy food and to whom to sell 
goods. They could always find some one who knew the 
language of Peking, and hence it was comparatively 
easy to visit even the remote parts of the country. 
Thus the various portions of China have never become 
diverse and unrelated, as have those of India. 



CHAPTER XX 

PEKING AND THE HWANG-HO 

The Diversity of China. In the last chapter we con- 
sidered the general facts in regard to China as a whole, 
its isolation, the form of the land, and the climate. We 
saw that China has stagnated because she has been 
cut off from the rest of the world. She has grown poor 
because favorable physical conditions have made the 
population very dense, while other conditions have pre- 
vented people from moving away. We saw, too, that 
physical conditions have permitted the country to have 
a large amount of diversity and yet to remain one land 
inhabited by a single nation. In this chapter and others 
we shall take up the various parts of China. We shall 
see how they differ, and shall study some of the many 
customs which depend more or less closely on the 
general facts already stated. 

The Mouth of the Yellow River. An excellent way 
to get a good idea of China as a whole is to begin in the 
far northeast near Peking and travel southward along 
the coast, turning aside to follow each of the three 
great rivers far into the interior. In approaching the 
coast of north China through the Gulf of Pechili, one 
notices that the water changes from blue to muddy yel- 
low. No land is in sight, but the captain of the steamer 
says that the ship is passing the mouth of the Hwang-ho, 
or Yellow River, which brings down enormous quantities 
of mud from the plateaus far to the west. Part of the 
mud is deposited on the land, and part is spread over 
the bottom of the sea. In this way the sea becomes 
more and more shallow and its borders are gradually 

235 



236 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

converted into land. After a ship has sailed many- 
miles through the Yellow Sea, land at length appears, 
a flat, uninteresting country, so low that it cannot be 
seen till close at hand. 

Peking. A short railroad ride across the smooth plain 
takes one to Peking, the famous capital. The city 
consists of two large oblongs inclosed by walls, which 
are higher and thicker than the Great Wall. Every 
Chinese city has walls, and so do many of the villages. 
The walls are of little use as a protection against modem 
cannon, but in the old days they furnished excellent 
protection; and even now they are useful in keeping 
out the bands of robbers who often infest the country 
in times of famine. The southern oblong of Peking is 
called the Chinese city. The northern is the Tartar or 
Manchu city, where all the government offices are located. 
In the center of the city, within another inclosure, 
the Emperor lives with his family and a great number 
of attendants. The Chinese worship the Emperor. 
When he passes through the streets, at rare intervals, 
great preparations are made. Everyone must leave 
the route by which he is to pass, and all shops must be 
closed. If anyone comes to the street by accident when 
the Emperor is passing, he must fall on his knees and 
hide his face on the ground until the ruler's gay pro- 
cession has passed. 

Street Scenes and Clothing in Peking. Peking is a 
dirty city. The narrow streets are full of holes; for 
there are almost no pavements, and in the wet weather 
of summer they are fearfully muddy. The houses are 
almost all low, with tiled roofs. The stores and shops 
are small, but many of them appear elegant from a 
distance. This is because the fronts are made of carved 
wood and ornamented with gaudy signs bearing Chinese 



PEKING AND THE HWANG-HO 



237 



letters painted on a background of red, black, gold, or 
silver. Thousands of people pass to and fro, talking in 




Chinese military officers with fans and smoked glasses 

a tone which to us sounds very singsong. The people 
from the country are dressed mostly in blue. Those 
from the city wear brighter clothes ; some of the women 
have dresses of purple and green, of blue and pink, and 
of other gay colors. The most interesting clothes are the 
silk robes of officials. Some wear light blue gowns, and 
others dark blue or purple. On their breasts the mili- 
tary officers wear large square pieces of silk upon which 
are embroidered tigers, while the civil officials wear 
peaceful birds done in the most beautiful colors. It 
seems strange to us to see men dressed in skirts and 
carrying fans, but to the Chinese this is the proper 
thing. Many of the officials and merchants wear large 
glasses, an inch and a half in diameter, and nearly a 
quarter of an inch thick. Sometimes these are smoked 
to protect the eyes from the glare of the sun, and the 



238 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

appearance is so odd that the foreigner can hardly 
refrain from laughing. 

Officials and other people of importance do not go 
about much on foot. Army officers ride on horses, 
but to most Chinese this seems too warlike. Because 
of the large amount of food which they require, horses 
are very scarce in the densely-populated parts of China. 
Hence the Chinese are afraid of them and think that it 
requires a brave man to ride one. Most Chinese who are 
not so poor as to travel on foot employ uncomfortable 
little carts with two wheels and no springs, such as we 
saw in Manchuria. Those who can afford to do so ride 
in sedan chairs, which may be described as bird houses 
large enough for a man. The sedans are mounted on 
long poles. Two, four, or eight men put the poles on 
their shoulders and trot away with the sedan. Only 
persons of high rank are allowed to have eight sedan 
bearers. In China it is possible to tell the rank of many 
people by their hats, or rather by the round buttons 
worn on the tops of their hats. The highest officials 
or mandarins wear red buttons, the next wear blue, 
the next white, and the lowest gold or gilt. Scholars 
also wear a special button on their hats. 

The Languages of China : Methods of Writing. Some- 
times in the busy streets of Peking one notices two men 
in a shop who seem to be doing business but do not 
talk to each other. They write down what they have to 
say on a piece of paper which they pass back and forth. 
At first it seems that they must be deaf or dumb, but 
soon both turn aside and begin to talk freely to their 
companions. They write, simply because one is from a 
distant province where the spoken language is quite dif- 
ferent from that of Peking. The Chinese language fur- 
nishes an admirable illustration of both the diversity 



PEKING AND THE HWANG-HO 239 

and the unity of the country. China is so large and its 
people are so separated from one another that there 
are many branches of the Chinese language which differ 
as much as do French and Italian. For instance, in. 
Peking the word for "man" is jin; in Shantung it is yin; 
in Shanghai, nieng; at Ningpo, ning; at Foochow, long; 
and at Canton, yan. Yet the country possesses such a 
degree of unity that, strange as it may seem to us, all 
these words are written in exactly the same way. 

The Chinese do not have any letters representing 
sounds as we do. Instead, they have what are called 
ideographs. These originated as pictures which have 
now been reduced to a very few lines. Thus, for "man" 
the Chinese write /., which represents the body and 
two legs of a man. Any man who can read understands 
that /, means "man;" but if he is from Peking he pro- 
nounces it jin, while if he is from Foochow he calls it 
long. It is just like our numerals. If we see the figure 
"2" we call it two; but a Frenchman calls it deux, and a 
German zwei. When the sign for "man" is put into four 
lines representing walls, thus Q, it means "prisoner." 
A dash in the middle of an oblong Q rneans "sun;" and a 
pig under a roof ^ means "home." Chinese is written 
in columns, not in lines. The first page is at what we 
call the back of a book and footnotes are put at the top. 

The Chinese language is very hard to learn. In the 
standard Chinese dictionary there are 44,449 characters, 
all different. It is not necessary to learn all these, 
but about 2,500 are necessary. Many of them are very 
complicated, much worse than the one given above for 
"home." It would not be possible to learn them if the 
simpler signs — such as those for "man" and "sun" — 
were not repeated again and again in new combinations. 
Even so, it takes most of a boy's school days to learn to 



240 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

write. The letters are not made with a pen but with a 
soft brush. One day a Chinese watched a traveler 
write with a fountain pen. He thought that the for- 
eigner must be a magician because he never dipped the 
pen into ink. "Can the pen make ink of itself?" he 
asked. When the working of the pen was explained to 
him, he understood it at once, for the Chinese are clever 
people. After watching the traveler write a few minutes 
more, he remarked to another onlooker, "What a 
learned man the stranger must be to wTite such small 
letters." The Chinese language is so difficult to write 
that only those who have written a great deal can make 
small, neat letters with the common brush. The 
Chinese believe that if a man writes much he must be 
learned, and they have a great admiration for learning. 
They have taught their system of writing to the Japanese 
and Koreans. Educated men in all three countries 
read the same books and can write letters to one another, 
even in cases where they cannot understand a word of 
any spoken language but their own. 

Europeans and Americans find it almost impossible 
to use the Chinese language. Accordingly, in foreign 
business a language is used which has English words 
altered in such a way as to be easy for the Chinese to 
pronounce. It is called "pidgin," or "business" 
English. Here is a sample. An American in one of 
the "treaty ports," or Chinese cities where foreigners 
are allowed to live and own land, went to call on two 
young ladies. The Chinese servant, who opened the 
door, gravely remarked: "That two piecey girl no can 
see. Number one piecey top side, makee washee, washee. 
Number two piecey go outside, makee walkee, walkee." 
He meant that the elder sister was up stairs taking a 
bath, and the younger had gone out to walk. 



PEKING AND THE HWANG-HO 



241 




Rapid transit in China. Seeing the 
country on a wheelbarrow 



Traveling by Wheelbarrow. From Peking one can 
travel southward by rail or can go back to the sea ; but 
if one wants to 
see as much as 
possible of the 
people, it is a 
very good plan 
to go by wheel- 
barrow. Of 
course it is not 
very comfort- 
able, and unless 
one carries food 
with him he 
may be able to 
get nothing but 
rice and tea, or 
poor cakes made of millet. A Chinese wheelbarrow has 
a much larger wheel than ours, and the load is put 
on either side of it. One man holds up the handles, on 
which there is very little weight, and often another 
pulls in front. Sometimes a donkey is fastened on ahead. 
If there is a good wind from behind, a sail is put up, and 
away trundles the wheelbarrow so fast that the barrow 
man almost has to trot. This odd one-wheeled vehicle 
is used partly because of the scarcity of horses, and 
partly because its single wheel renders it fit for the 
narrow roads of China. Both reasons for its use result 
from the density of the population. 

The Plains of Pechili. In the vast, smooth plain 
south of Peking there are no real roads, only the crooked 
paths already described, dusty in winter and very 
muddy in summer. There are no fences, nor any pas- 
ture lands. Every foot of ground right up to the 



242 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

winding paths is cultivated. Village succeeds -village 
so quickly that it seems as if one were in the suburbs of 
a city most of the time. Often the traveler meets 
other wheelbarrows or men carrying loads on their 
backs, and occasionally a sedan chair is met. Of 
course, animals such as cows, horses, and sheep are very 
rare, because there is no room for them. Pigs and 
chickens, however, are abundant; for these animals 
require but little room and can be fed on food that man 
cannot use. 

The Cue. All the men on the road wear their hair 
in cues, or "pigtails." Some have it loosely braided, 
which shows that they have the same disagreeable traits 
of character as those men in America who always wear 
their hats on' one side of their heads. Others, who are at 
work, have the cue coiled around the neck; but when 
they meet an acquaintance they at once take it down. 
To have one's cue around the neck or in a knot when 
greeting a friend, is like a man having his hat on in the 
house in America. When the Manchus came to China, 
nearly three hundred years ago, they wore cues; but 
the Chinese did not. The new Emperor ordered the 
men to wear cues as a sign that they were conquered. 
They would not do it, but kept their hair cut short. 
Then he ordered that all criminals should have their 
hair cut short. At once everyone began to let his hair 
grow as a sign that he was not a criminal. Now^ all 
Chinese are very proud of the cue. 

Foot-binding. With the exception of the ver}^ poor 
most of the women w^hom the traveler meets have a 
strange, tottering way of walking. They have to sit 
down and rest very often. It is because they have 
small feet. When they are babies their feet are tied 
up very tightly, and are kept so until the babies become j 



PEKING AND THE HWANG-HO 243 

women. The feet have no chance to grow, and are 
often only two and a half or three inches long. The 
Chinese think that small feet are very beautiful, but the 
custom is a very silly one. It causes much suffering to 
the girls, who never can run and play and have any 
fun. Almost every nation has some foolish customs of 
this kind, which have grown up no one knows how. 
Fortunately the Chinese have begun to see the folly of 
foot-binding, and it is being given up. 

Scenes outside a Village. When the barrow man meets 
a friend, he does not merely say, "How do you do?" 
and pass on. Instead he stops to make many low bows, 
and says politely, "Has your honorable and worthy self 
eaten rice?" Each of the friends pretends to bow 
lower or more often than the other, and each seems to 
prevent the other from bowing. But it is half sham, for 
they both know that the one whose station is considered 
lowest will make the most and the humblest bows. 
The process takes a long time and, as it is near nightfall, 
the traveler is glad to go on to the next town, which is 
merely a big village with a wall. Outside the wall not a 
house can be seen, although other villages, walled and 
unwalled, appear in all directions across the plain. 
Between them the land is a great garden with patches of 
melons, turnips, and huge cabbages, fields of millet, wheat, 
and other crops. Here and there is seen a vineyard or a 
few trees. In almost every field there is a little sleeping 
shed or a platform raised above the ground. In the 
harvest season some one must watch the fields all the 
time to see that nothing is stolen. Hence scores of 
people are seen coming out of the village with pieces 
of cloth and the crudest kind of cots on which to sleep. 
China is so thickly populated that in every village there 
are poor people who steal in order to live. Some of 



244 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



the people belong to the village; more of them have 
come from some place where there has been a famine. 









' "^^^^a^H^R ■?' 



A typical Chinese village 

Scenes inside a Village. Inside the wall of the village 
the houses are huddled together as closely as .in the city. 
Most of them are made of dry mud ; for, as we have seen, 
wood is scarce in northern China, because the monsoon 
rains do not come till the very end of spring or the 
beginning of summer. The roofs of some houses are 
flat and are made of mud, while those of others slope 
and are covered with a thatch of straw. Only the 
best have roofs of good red tiles. During the heavy 
rains of summer a mud house often becomes so w^et 
that it crumbles to pieces and falls down, occasionally 
killing some of the occupants. 

Chinese Superstitions. In the villages the streets are 
never straight for any great distance. "Why is this?" 
a traveler asked. "Oh," said his barrow man, "you 
know there are many demons living around here. Some- 
times they come into the village and do lots of harm. 
They make people grow sick, or lose their money. We 
try to keep them out as much as possible, and our priests 



PEKING AND THE HWANG-HO 245 

say many prayers against them at the temples. Still 
they often get in. You know they are very stupid. 
When they get started they keep on straight ahead and 
can't turn a corner. We always make the streets in our 
villages crooked just to fool them. They don't know 
when they come to a corner, and so they run into the 
walls and get hurt. 

"Last summer," the barrow man went on, smoothing 
his pigtail, "the demons were very bad. We planted our 
seeds in the fields as usual in the spring. A few showers 
fell and some of the crops came up. Then the demons 
stopped the summer rains from falling. They made 
the northwest wind blow. It dried up the earth. The 
plants which had begun to grow all shrivelled up. 
The plain was bare and brown in June, and one would 
have thought it was midwinter, if the air had not been 
so hot. We made a procession and prayed for rain. 
Every man carried a green wallow branch, for the willows 
had not dried up. Then we got an image of the Dragon 
King, who causes drought. One man went ahead with a 
bucket of water into which he dipped his branch, and 
sprinkled the dripping water on the ground, crying out, 
'The rain comes, the rain comes.' Other men carried 
gongs and drums, and still others, flags. Yellow and 
white flags stood for wind and water; green and black 
ones represented clouds. On them were inscriptions 
such as, 'Prayer is offered for rain,' or 'For the salva- 
tion and relief of the people.' As we walked along 
everyone cried out, 'The rain is coming,' or 'Let it 
rain.' 

"The priests led us to the river. There we caught 
the Dragon King. He took the form of a little green 
lizard, in order that we might not know him. But we 
put him in a sedan chair and carried him to the house of 



246 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



the Mandarin. The great man came out and worshiped 
the Dragon King, and then we let the lizard go. We 




A Chinese temple 

thought the rain would come then, but it did not. The 
Mandarin went to all the temples to pray. Then he 
ordered the north gate to be shut. The dry winds come 
from the north, you know, and sometimes, if the north 
gates are shut, it keeps the demon of drought away. 
Even that was of no use, and at last we went to the temple 
of the Goddess of Mercy. We took her image and set 
it out in the sun until the paint peeled off, in order that 
she might see how we were suffering from the drought. 
In July the rain came, but it was so late that we only 
got a very small crop of millet and vegetables. Half the 
people in the village did not have enough to eat, and 
thirty people died of hunger." 

Drought and Famine. Every village has stories like 
this to tell. Almost all parts of China suffer from 
drought, especially the northern parts. The monsoon 
winds bringing rain from the ocean in summer are a 
great blessing; but when they come late or when 
they bring less rain than the crops need, the people 



PEKING AND THE HWANG-HO 



247 



suffer terribly. As the Chinese have not studied the 
laws of nature, they do not understand why the rains 
fail. They think that all misfortunes are due to evil 
spirits or demons. A large part of their time and 
energy is spent in trying to prevent the demons from 
doing harm. At last the leaders of China are beginning 
to see that by studying the causes of misfortune they 
may be able to find remedies. 

A River above a City. After the traveler had heard 
about the drought and the famines, he went on for 
many days southward across the same smooth plain, 
and at last came near the city of Kaifung. In the 
distance a high wall appeared, stretching for miles in 
either direction. It was too long to be merely. the wall 
of a city. **What can it be?" he asked himself . Steps 
led up the side of it, and up these he climbed, followed 
by the barrow man. At the top he found himself on the 
banks of a broad, muddy stream, the great Hwang-ho. 
He was ferried 
across in a boat, 
and on the other 
bank saw below 
him on the plain 
the great city of 
Kaifung. There it 
lay, its gray walls 
surrounding a 
blue-gray sea of 
common houses, 
from which arose 
here and there the 
red blocks of large 
government build- 
ings, the green-tiled 




The twin pagodas southwest of Peking, 
near Taiyuen-fii in Shansi 



248 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

roofs of tawdry temples, and the slender shafts of tall 
pagodas. There were, also, massive walls of stone-faced 
pawnshops and of storehouses six or seven stories high. 
If the river, now at its height, should rise a little 
farther and overflow the banks or make a break in 
them, much of the city would be flooded. 

The Floods of the Hwang-ho. Every year the turbid 
river deposits mud in its bed at low water. The next 
year at high water the stream rises a little higher than 
before, and the great embankments which wall it in 
have to be built up a little more. In this way the bed 
of the river and its banks rise gradually above the 
plain. Sometimes the river breaks through its banks 
and floods the country for dozens of miles on either side. 
Formerly the Hwang-ho did not turn to the northeast 
near Kaifung-fu, but went on straight east and then a 
little south, and entered the ocean not far north of the 
mouth of the Yangtse-kiang. 

In 1852, however, the river broke through its banks 
and streamed away northward along its present course 
to its mouth in the Gulf of Pechili, more than three 
hundred miles from the old mouth. Thousands of 
square miles of the plain were flooded. A raging torrent 
of yellow water swept away hundreds of villages and 
millions of people had to flee. Many could not escape 
and .were drowned. The others saved their lives but 
lost everything else — houses, furniture, crops, friends. 
Families were separated; children wandered about for 
weeks trying in vain to find their parents. It was 
months before the homeless sufferers found rest. Many 
died of starvation; more were killed by the pestilence 
that followed. The remainder settled in new places or 
became beggars or, after the floods had subsided, wan- 
dered back to the place which had once been home. 



PEKING AND THE HWANG-HO 249 

In 1887 the Hwang- ho again changed its course. This 
time it broke away to the south at Kaifung-fu and 
flowed to the Yangtse-kiang. Again hundreds of thou- 
sands of people perished of starvation or were drowned. 
It cost the Chinese government twelve or thirteen million 
dollars to get the river back to its old bed. No wonder 
the Hwang-ho is called "China's Sorrow." The changes 
in its course were as great as would be those of the 
Mississippi if it should suddenly leave its present channel 
at the mouth of the Arkansas River, and should flow to 
the Gulf of Mexico by way of Montgomery and Talla- 
hassee, through the states of Mississippi, Alabama, and 
Florida. 

For hundreds of thousands of years before men existed 
in China, the Hwang-ho and the other rivers flowed to the 
seas as they chose, sometimes in one channel and some- 
times in another. Thus they deposited the mud which 
they carried and built up the great plains where a large 
part of the multitudes of Chinese now live. To-day the 
plains are the most productive part of the country. 
They have a population more dense than that of any 
other part of the world except, perhaps, the plains of the 
Ganges and the Nile. In no other place do floods have 
such an opportunity to cause disaster and famine. The 
reason for the floods is, in part, the great amount of rain 
which the monsoons cause to fall in midsummer and, in 
part, the lack of forests on the mountains to hold back 
the water. 

The Northwestern Plateau Provinces: Coal. Above 
Kaifung-fu, the plain of the Hwang-ho soon comes to an 
end. The river here flows across the escarpment w^hich 
in China, as in Manchuria, divides the low plains from 
the plateaus. On the plateau lie the provinces of Shansi, 
Shensi, and Kansu. They are rich in coal and iron, but 



250 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



are too dry and hilly to be very thickly inhabited. 
Because of the minerals many foreigners want to build 
railroads and open mines; but the Chinese are slow about 
giving permission, because they prefer to do these things 
themselves. Some day the plateau provinces will play 
the same part in China that Pennsylvania does in the 
United States, or that Lancashire does in England. 

Loess. In Shensi and Shansi many of the roads are 
trenches from ten to fifty feet deep. In this region 
horses and other animals, such as sheep, are more numer- 
ous than in the great plains, because here part of the 
land cannot possibly be cultivated, and so is used for 
pasture. As the traveler rides along in the bottom of 
a dusty ditch on horseback or in a Chinese cart, he 
notices doors cut in the walls of the road and people 
going in and out. The doors give access to small 
square caves or houses dug in the soft soil in which 




A memorial temple in Shansi 



PEKING AND THE HWANG-HO 251 

the roads are sunk. These dwellings have no windows 
and no means of ventilation. In many cases there is no 
way for smoke to get out except through the door. The 
houses are warm and dry, but are not very pleasant ac- 
cording to our ideas. Above the houses, on the top of 
the plain, are roads and smooth fields where crops are 
growing, watered sometimes by streams and canals, 
which have to be carefully kept away from the deep roads. 

All this region is composed of the peculiar kind of soil 
called loess. When the strong northwest winds blow 
from Mongolia and the desert region of Gobi, they whirl 
up the loose sand and dust of those dry regions and carry 
it forward with them. The larger particles are soon 
dropped, but the smaller are carried for hundreds of 
miles. The air is sometimes so full of dust that it is 
impossible to see more than half a mile. Little by little 
the dust falls, but fast enough to be noticeable in a few 
minutes on white cloth. Sometimes it comes down so 
fast that in writing a letter one must brush his paper 
every ten or fifteen minutes to keep the pen from be- 
coming clogged. Where the dust falls in grassy places, it 
remains. In the course of thousands of years so much 
dust has fallen that now there is a deposit fifty to one 
hundred feet thick of fine, yellow earth, or loess. It is 
very tenacious, so that when it is cut Avith a spade 
the marks of the spade may remain visible ten or twenty 
years. Along the roads the feet of the animals and the 
wheels of carts break up the loess into dust. The wind 
picks up the dust and carries it away. Thus the roads 
keep losing material and sink into the ground. 

Winter Customs of Heating Houses and of Dress. The 
plateau provinces are very cold in winter. The houses 
are heated by "kangs," or mud platforms of the sort 
that are found in Manchuria. As coal is not much used. 



252 -ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

weeds are the chief fuel, but they blaze up quickly 
and are soon consumed. A "kang" may be very warm 
when one goes to bed on it, but after a few hours it 
becomes very cold. It is so hard to keep warm that the 
people here, as in all parts of northern China, wear a 
great many clothes. Often they put on one dress after 
another, until in cold weather they may have on five 
or six and look enormously fat. Sometimes a child has 
on so many clothes that when it falls down it cannot 
get up again; and there it lies kicking until its mother 
notices it. 



CHAPTER XXI 

SHANTUNG AND THE PROVINCES OF 
THE YANGTSE-KIANG 

Shantung. Between the old and new mouths of the 
Hwang-ho lies the promontory of Shantung. Long ago, 
when the great plains of China were under the sea, it 
was an island. Now it is only partly surrounded by the 
ocean, and the western side is bordered by plains 
smoother than our prairies. Shantung is a mountainous, 
rocky region. Its hills are bare and not very fruitful; 
but its people are among the strongest and most capable 
in all China. Because they are poor, many of them go 
elsewhere to find new homes. Most of the millions who 
have recently settled in Manchuria are from Shantung. 
For thousands of years the rocky peninsula has been one 
of the most important parts of the Middle Kingdom. 
More than two thousand years ago it was the home of 
Confucius and Mencius, the two greatest men of China. 
The descendants of Confucius — the Dukes of Kung — 
still live here, where their ancestors have lived for 
seventy-six generations. No other family in the world 
can trace its ancestors back so far. 

Foreign Nations and Chinese Law. In modern times 
Shantung has been a region much desired by the nations 
of Europe. Germany compelled China to lease to her 
the city and harbor of Kiao-chou on the south coast a 
few years ago, and England demanded and obtained 
a lease of the fine harbor of Weihaiwei on the north 
coast. Now the Germans are building railroads and 
opening mines. Little by little they are taking the 
control of Shantung out of the hands of the Chinese. 

253 



254 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

The Chinese form of government is so different from 
that of Europe and America that foreigners- are not 
willing to live under Chinese laws. In Italy an American 
is subject to the laws of that country, and if he commits 
a crime or has a lawsuit, he must come before an Italian 
court. In China it is different. All foreigners are tried 
according to their own laws, by consuls and other offi- 
cials of their own government. This vexes the Chinese; 
but foreign governments will not consent to any other 
arrangement until the Chinese change their laws and 
their courts. 

Chinese Punishments. In Shantung, and in every 
other province, prisoners are often whipped until they 
die. Those who are suspected of crime are tortured 
until they confess. Sometimes one sees by the wayside 
two or three criminals w4th pieces of wood, like the tops 
of kitchen tables, around their necks. The boards are 
kept on night and day until the punishment is ended. 
The men must go without food unless friends feed them, 
for their hands cannot reach their mouths through the 
boards. Neither can the men lie down by night or by 
day, nor sit with their backs against anything, nor 
protect themselves against passers-by, who spit upon 
them and insult them. On the boards are pasted papers 
saying, "This man is a thief," "This man let his father 
go hungry when he himself had plenty," or "This man 
led a mob to pull down his neighbor's house." 

One of the worst things about Chinese punishments is 
that they are not always inflicted on the right person. 
A rich Chinese was convicted of cheating his customers 
and of illtreating his mother. He sent this message to 
the judge: "I know a poor man who wants to get 
money to bury his father. He will come and take my 
whipping if I pay him enough. If you will let him take 



SHANTUNG AND PROVINCES OF THE YANGTSE 255 




A prisoner wearing the heavy wooden 

frame. Note the placards telling 

the story of his offense 



my place, I will pay you a hundred ounces of silver." 
The judge sent back word: "Send the money secretly. 
Go to your home. 
I will have a new 
trial in which it will 
seem as if the poor 
man was the crimi- 
nal, not you." Of 
course no civilized 
government can 
allow its subjects 
to be treated in 
this way. 

"Treaty Ports/' 
The majority of the 
Chinese do not like 
to have foreigners 
in their country, especially when the foreigners grow 
rich by doing business which the Chinese think they 
themselves might do. On the other hand, foreigners 
do not like to live in China except under the protection 
of their own governments. Accordingly, it has been 
agreed that foreigners shall not do business or settle 
permanently in all parts of the country, but only in 
about thirty cities which have been especially agreed 
upon. In many of the "treaty ports," as the cities are 
called, a certain quarter is set apart for foreigners and 
is put under foreign rule. There any one may buy land 
and do business just as in America or Europe. Outside 
of the treaty ports missionaries are almost the only for- 
eigners who reside permanently in Chinese cities. 

Besides the treaty ports there are five cities in China 
which belong outright to foreign nations, or have been 
leased by them for long terms. Two of these, as we have 



256 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



seen, are in Shantung, namely, Weihaiwei, belonging to 
England, and Kiao-chou, belonging to Germany. North 

of Shantung, 
Japan has tak- 
en possession 
of Port Arthur 
and the coun- 
try around it. 
In the south, 
at the mouth 
of the Si-kiang, 
England long 
ago compelled 
China to give 
her the famous 
port of Hong- 
kong, now one 
of the greatest 
commercial 
centers in the 




A coolie tvith his wheelbarrow loaded with 
rice in front of a shop at Shanghai 



world. Not far away lies Macao, which Portugal took 
against the will of China. It was once important, but 
now its trade has gone to Hong-kong, and Macao is 
merely a great gambling resort. The history of the 
foreign cities and treaty ports illustrates the way in 
which European nations have compelled China to trade 
with them. The Chinese wanted to be let alone, but the 
other nations thought that they could grow rich by trad- 
ing with China. As they had guns and ships, they were 
able to compel the Chinese to do as they wished. The 
people of China resent this, and no one can blame them. 
Shanghai. The most important of all the treaty 
ports is Shanghai. It lies near the mouth of the Yangtse- 
kiang and bears the same relation to China that New 



SHANTUNG AND PROVINCES OF THE YANGTSE 257 



York does to the United States. Its harbor is not so 
good as that of New York, because the river is constantly 
bringing down mud and filling it up. Shanghai, like 
most Chinese ports, does not lie directly on the sea, but 
fifty-four miles inland on a branch of the Yangtse-kiang. 
Its situation closely resembles that of New Orleans. 
Most great rivers form deltas at their mouths. At the 
seaward margin of such deltas, sand bars and shoals 
usually abound, and the land is so low that it is better to 
put the cities inland a little. Even if a town is founded 
directly upon the coast, so much sediment is likely to be 
deposited in the sea that in a few hundreds of years the 
town is separated from the water by a tract of flat 
new land. Therefore Shanghai, New Orleans, Calcutta, 
Hamburg, and many other important cities are not lo- 
cated directly at the mouths of their rivers, but a short 
distance upstream on the delta, beside one of the main 
branches, or distributaries, of the stream. 

Chinese Guilds. Shanghai is a good deal warmer than 
Peking and north China, but the habits of its people are 
very similar to those of other parts of the country. Its 
narrow, ill-smelling 
streets are full of 
shops. In one street 
all of the shoema- 
kers are gathered 
together, and one 
can watch them 
making shoes out 
of cord They use 
this material be- 
cause leather is too 
expensive by rea- 
son of the scarcity 




Chinese carpenters at work 



258 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

of animals. In another place the coppersmiths fill the 
air with the din of hammering. Silk merchants occupy 
another section, and dealers in spices another. Each 
trade has its guild or union, and is responsible for the 
care of the streets and the orderliness of its own section. 

Beggars. One day an American was walking on the city 
Avail at evening, when he came upon a company of well- 
dressed men drinking tea. They invited him to drink with 
them, although he was a stranger. They did not expect 
him to do it, but Chinese politeness obliges people 
to give many invitations which they do not expect to 
have accepted. The American accepted, however, and 
sat down. As he sipped his tea with a sucking noise to 
show that he enjoyed it, he asked, "What is your 
honorable profession?" "We are beggars," was the 
answer. They had taken off their rags and the bloody 
bandages which they wear and were enjoying money 
which they had begged. 

In so poor a country as China beggars are naturally 
very numerous, especially after a drought or a flood. 
Begging is a recognized profession, and each large 
town has a beggars' guild or union. The head beggar 
makes an agreement with the other beggars that they 
are each to go to such and such places. They must 
not go to any merchant oftener than once in so many 
days. They must not go to houses. If a shopkeeper 
will not give a "cash" — a Chinese coin like a big cent 
with a square hole in the middle and worth a tenth of a 
cent, or even much less — the beggar waits a while, and 
then gets some friends ; they go to the merchant's shop 
and make such a howling that no one will come to buy. 
At last the merchant has to give to all the beggars in- 
stead of only to one. If the headman of the beggars 
learns that some one is going to give a feast to celebrate 



SHANTUNG AND PROVINCES OF THE YANGTSE 259 

a wedding or a funeral, he sends around to get a share 
of the good things. If the share is not given, the 
beggars make such a commotion that the wedding or 
the funeral cannot go on. 

Chinese Funerals. It seems strange to talk of a feast 
at a funeral, but that is what one finds in China. Feasts 
are almost the only good times that the Chinese enjoy. 
When a person is sick, no one thinks of leaving him alone. 
His friends gather in the room and talk and laugh and 
make a noise which would be almost enough to kill one 
of us. If the sick man already has a coffin, he feels 
happy, for he knows that he will have a good funeral. 
When the funeral finally takes place, there is a great pro- 
cession with as many people as possible. All are dressed 
in white or wear white bands, instead of black, as with us. 
As the coffin is carried through the streets there is much 
tooting of horns and beating of drums. Members of the 
procession keep throwing paper money into the air in 
handfuls. This is for the demons, so that they may be 
willing to keep away and not trouble the spirit of the 
dead man. Large quantities of the paper are also 
burned. It is supposed that the dead man wdll need 
money and that he can use the burned paper. A funeral 
is extremely expensive. Often a family spends every bit 
of its money in order to have many lanterns, much paper 
money, and a fine feast at a funeral. 

Chinese Weddings : Ancestor Worship. Sometimes a 
gay procession is seen in which are several sedan chairs 
loaded with fancy cakes, clothes, and many fine things. 
Behind these comes a bright-red sedan. A bride is in 
the red sedan, and she is on her way to her husband's 
house. Usually she is not happy. At home girls do not 
as a rule have a very good time. Confucius taught 
that a child should obey his parents in all things while 



26o 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



the parents are alive and should worship them when 
they die. In all parts of China every house has its shrine 




A Chinese bride in a gay sedan chair, on the way to 
her husband's home 

containing tablets or images of the ancestors of a family. 
These are worshiped every few days with candles, 
incense, and offerings of food. It is considered a great 
misfortune if a family has no children to worship the 
ancestors. Now, when a girl is married she goes to 
the house of her husband's parents. She then becomes 
a part of their family and obeys them and w^orships the 
ancestors of her father-in-law. She is, as*the Chinese 
say, dead to her own family. A boy, on the other hand, 
stays in his father's house, even after he is married. 
So all fathers and mothers are very anxious to have 
sons, who will stay in the house and worship their ances- 
tors. When a girl is born her parents are usually sad. 
A father who had four daughters was much disappointed 
when a fifth girl was born. He did not like her and 
named her "Enough Hawks," because he thought girls 



SHANTUNG AND PROVINCES OF THE YANGTSE 261 

were like hawks, which eat much but are of no use. 
Another father named his daughter "Ought-to-have- 
been-a-boy." 

Since the poor girls are so unwelcome, they are often 
badly treated. They are generally obliged to stay in the 
house and work until their poor, tightly-bound little feet 
ache miserably. They rarely have any fun like the Japa- 
nese girls. When there is a feast, they have to wait until 
every one else has eaten. Sometimes they are taken to a 
fair. Then they have a fine time, especially if there is 
a theater. A Chinese theater is not at all like ours. It 
is out of doors. The poor people commonly stand dur- 
ing the performance or else sit on the ground. A few 
who are rich have seats provided for them. The per- 
formance of a single piece lasts all day or perhaps two or 
three days, and it is fearfully dull for foreigners. There 
is no scenery. If an actor wants the people to know 
that he is in a palace, he merely says, "Now v/e are in a 
palace in Peking," and the spectators are left to imagine 
the rest. Still the Chinese enjoy it immensely, and the 
girls never have a better time than at a theater. 
. When a girl is to be married, she does not know any- 
thing about it beforehand. Sometimes she is engaged 
when she is only a baby. Usually she is married by the 
time she is fifteen years old. In many cases she is not 
allowed to see the boy whom she is to marry, for that 
would be considered immodest. He, too, knows nothing 
about her, and is scarcely older than she. The parents 
arrange everything, and the children do as they are told. 
When the wedding day comes the poor girl has to say 
good-by to all her friends and is taken among strangers 
whom she has never seen. Her face is covered as she 
rides in her red sedan, and when she reaches her hus- 
band's house she is carried through the door pickaback 



262 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



by an old woman. Once inside the house, the cloth is 
taken from her face, and her new relatives for the first 
time take a good look at her. If they do not like her 
appearance, they say mean things such as, "How ugly 
she is!" "What big feet she has!" or "See how straight 
her eyes are, just like those of a foreign devil!" In her 
new home she must do exactly as her mother-in-law 
says. The oldest person in the house rules all the rest, 
and even a son is not allowed to do anything without 
his father's permission, although the son may be a man 
fifty years old. 

Chinese Schools. Chinese boys are very much petted 
at home. Those who are poor have to work from morn- 
ing till night, gathering fuel, helping on the farm, or 
tending the shop; but the parents are always proud of 




A group of Chinese schoolboys 



SHANTUNG AND PROVINCES OF THE YANGTSE 263 

them. When a boy goes to school he ceases to be 
petted. Teachers are expected to be very severe and to 
whip the boys a great deal. One day a foreigner was 
riding horseback along a narrow Chinese street. As he 
came opposite a door he heard a murmuring sound of 
voices, and stopped to see what was going on within. 
As he halted at the door, he saw thirty or forty Chinese 
boys sitting on benches. All were reading aloud. One boy 
was in front on his knees w4th his back to the teacher, 
who held a book and a rod. He was reciting his lesson 
but squatted w4th his back to the teacher that he might 
not by any possibility see the book. As the foreigner 
came to the door, all the scholars stopped reading, and 
the room became still. That made the teacher angry, 
and he brought down his rod with a whack on the desk 
and swore at the boys. At once every one of them began 
to read away at the top of his voice. The stranger 
stepped forward a little, and again there was dead silence. 
The teacher became furious. He struck the nearest boys 
with the rod, stamped on the floor, and swore horribly, 
while the boys all shouted at the tops of their voices. 
The teacher apologized to the American for having such 
very ill-mannered scholars. It was their business to 
learn page after page of the Chinese classics by heart. 
They read the passages over and over again to learn them, 
doing it out loud in order that the teacher might be sure 
that they were at work. When they stopped reading, it 
was as bad as if in an American school every boy and girl 
should suddenly begin to whisper when a stranger 
stepped in. 

According to the old system of education, after the 
boys had learned many books by heart and were able to 
write the Chinese characters, they were taught to write 
compositions and poetry. Those who were bright went 



264 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

at length to the city of their district to be examined. If 
they passed the examination, they studied more and 
tried a harder examination which lasted about three 
days. If they passed this, they were allowed to wear a 
special black button on their hats, and they had the 
title of learned man or scholar. They also had a chance 
to become officials. Before they could reach the higher 
offices, however, they must pass one or two more 
very difficult examinations. The higher examinations 
took place in the provincial capitals and in Peking. 
The candidates for examination all went to a great 
building full of thousands of little bare cells furnished 
with nothing but a seat, a brush for writing, some ink, 
and some paper. Each candidate was searched to see 
that he had no written papers or books with him. Then 
he was given a subject on which to write. He must stay 
until he had finished his task. If he wrote carelessly, 
or erased even a single word, his examination was almost 
sure to be a failure. 

Only about one in ten of those who tried the examina- 
tions passed, and often the number was much less. In 
many cases the same man tried again and again for ten 
or twenty years or even all his life. Sometimes a grand- 
father, a father, and a sqp all took the same examina- 
tions. Those who passed the highest examinations were 
very much honored and received high positions in the 
government. It was worth while to work hard to pass 
them, and the Chinese have more industry and patience 
in such work than have any other nation. 

Formerly the subjects of examination were merely 
ancient Chinese books, written hundreds or thousands of 
years ago. The student with the best memory had the 
best chance of passing. During recent years the system 
of examinations has been a good deal changed. Boys 



SHANTUNG AND PROVINCES OF THE YANGTSE 265 

and young men are now educated in subjects like those 
studied in American colleges. The Chinese reverence 
for education still persists, however. The people have 
so much respect for it that they think it wicked to use 
printed paper for any ordinary purpose. In Shanghai 
and many other cities it is considered an act of merit to 
pick up bits of written or printed paper and put them 
in special baskets prepared for them. When the baskets 
are full, the papers are carefully burned and the ashes 
are scattered in the river. 

Chinese Food. The Chinese have so many interesting 
habits and customs that we have not the space to talk 
about half of them. In the delta of the Yangtse-kiang 
and all the way up the river for a thousand miles, the 
people raise great quantities of rice, which grows much 
better here than in the north. Most of the people in this 
region and farther south live on rice, which they eat with 
chopsticks. Many people think that the Chinese pick 
up their rice with the chopsticks, but often that is not 
the case. Usually they merely hold the bowl of rice up 
to their mouths and shove the food in without lifting it. 

Everyone has heard that the Chinese eat such animals 
as cats, dogs, rats, and mice. This is partly true. 
The poor people eat them because they cannot get 
any other kind of meat, but they are not the com- 
mon food of the Chinese any more than woodchucks 
and possums are the common food of Americans. Still, 
the Chinese do eat things that seem to us very queer. 
In the cities one often meets a man with a long pole over 
his shoulder, from either end of which hang dozens of 
flat brown objects shaped like toy violins. They are 
ducks that have been pressed flat and dried. The shops 
contain dainties such as lily bulbs,, green algae from 
the rice fields, shark's skin, deer's sinews kept till they 



266 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

are soft, eggs that we should call rotten, and birds' nests 
from the islands of the sea. The birds' nests are made 
of seaweed, which the birds gather on the shore. The 
Chinese are like other nations which have a very dense 
population. They have learned to eat almost every- 
thing that can possibly be used as food. 

The Use of Fish. One of the commonest kinds of food 
is fish. Fish are carried about in tubs just as in Japan 
and Chosen. Some are caught by cormorants, others in 
nets, and some are raised in ponds. An Englishman 
was very much surprised one day to see an old m.an 
jump into a muddy pond as if he wanted to commit 
suicide; but in a minute out came the Chinese with 
two fish in his hands. The Chinese on the lower Yangtse 
often gather fish eggs and place them in ponds. When 
the fish have grown, they catch as many as possible 
with nets. Then they let out most of the water, and 
men, women, and children wade into the deep mud up 
to their waists and catch the fish in their hands. 

Along the Yangtse-kiang. In going up the Yangtse 
River one passes the Grand Canal. It was built hun- 
dreds of years ago, and extends nearly 500 miles to the 
northwest, connecting the plains of Pechili with those 
at the mouth of the Yangtse. It is one of the longest 
canals in the world. Some miles above the mouth of 
the canal lies Nanking, which means "Southern Capi- 
tal," just as Peking means "Northern Capital." It 
was the capital of China hundreds of years ago. 
Farther upstream the Yangtse flows through three 
great basins. In one of these Hes the Lake of Poyang, 
and in the next, the Lake of Tungting. The country 
around the lakes consists of smooth plains, very thickly 
settled and threaded in every direction with canals and 
streams. In summer when the monsoons cause floods, 



SHANTUNG AND PROVINCES OF THE YANGTSE 267 

the plains become vast shallow lakes. For miles and 
miles nothing can be seen except water with lines of 
trees extending across it. 

The Basin of Siichwan. The next basin, that of 
Such wan, or the Red Basin, is of quite a different sort. 
It lies among the western plateaus as a huge hollow 
To get to it, it is necessary to cross the mountains or 
else to go up the rapids of the Yangtse through the gorges 
of Ichang. Here the great river flows swiftly between 
lofty precipices. Boats must be towed up by men on 
the shore or in the water. On either side temples to the 
spirits of the place are perched high on the rocks. 
The gorges and rapids are due to the fact that the 
river flows across granite rocks. Above the gorges one 
enters the Red Basin, a hilly country and one of the 
best parts of China. Lying in the region where the 
winds are cooled as they rise to the great plateau of 
Tibet farther west, Siichwan has plenty of rain. The 
people have a proverb that in Siichwan there are so 
many clouds that the dogs bark when they see the sun. 
Thanks to its abundant rains the Red Basin has few 
famines, and the people are not so poor as those of other 
regions. 

Chinese Names. The upper part of the gorge by 
which the Yangtse passes from Siichwan to the plains 
of the lower river is called "Yellow Cat," and the lower 
part, "Moonshine." Most Chinese names seem to us odd 
when translated. Stores and hotels have such names 
as "Righteousness and Peace," "Kindness and Justice," 
"Unselfish Generosity," or "Friendship and Fidelity." 
A baby is often called by the name of the first thing that 
its father happens to see after its birth. One man had 
four children named Cart, Basket, Chicken, and Dog. 
The next child was born when its grandmother was 



268 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

seventy years old, and was called Seventy. The last 
was simply called Number Six. In another family the 
first boy was quite heavy, so he was called Stone; the 
next, a girl, who was plump, was called Little Fat 
One ; and still the next, being quite dark, was called Little 
Black One. In one case a father and mother had four 
girls, but no boy. At length a boy was born. They were 
very much afraid the demons, in which they believe so 
strongly, would harm the boy, so they called him Slave 
Girl, in order to fool the demons into thinking that he 
was a girl. All these are what are called "milk names." 
When a child grows up, or rather when a girl is married 
or a boy begins to wear a cue, they receive new names. 
The commonest family names are Chang, Wang, Li, and 
Chao. If a man's family name is Wang, he may be 
called Wang Spring-flowers, and his brothers may 
be Wang Spring-fragrance, Wang Spring-fields, and 
Wang Spring-showers. 



j 

t 

i 



CHAPTER XXII -- 

SOUTHERN CHINA 

The Mountainous Drowned Coast of South China. 

South of Shanghai and the Yangtse River the great plains 
of northern China come to an end. Their fiat, monoto- 
nous expanse gives place to beautiful mountains rising 
boldly from the sea. Here, as in Asia Minor and many 
other places, the land has at some time gone down a 
little, so that the drowned coast is fringed with islands 
and deeply indented with bays. The great city of 
Foochow, halfway from Shanghai to Hong-kong, lies 
on the drowned lower portion of the Min River, a few 
miles inland. The Min has often been compared to the 
Hudson where it passes through the Catskills; but the Min 
is more beautiful than the Hudson, because high moun- 
tains rise close to, instead of far back from, the water. 




A Chinese junk on the Min River at Foochow 
269 



2 70 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

Foochow and the Mountains of Fokien. As one looks 

down upon Foochow from the surrounding hills, the view, 
like that of most Chinese cities, consists largely of 
square miles of dull gray tiles, the roofs of innumerable 
low houses between which run paved paths too narrow 
to be called streets. Beyond the city blue mountains 
rise in the distance, and the silvery river winds through 
a richly-cultivated valley. On the shining stream 
black dots can be seen. They are rafts of timber float- 
ing down to be exported to all parts of China. The 
mountains of Fokien, as the province of Foochow is 
called, are one of the few parts of China where large 
forests remain. The mountains are too rugged for 
cultivation in many places, and as they have abundant 
rain, forests grow luxuriantly. 

The lower hills and the gently sloping portions of the 




Picturesque Foochow. Looking across its many tiled roofs 
to the mountains which rise in the distance 



SOUTHERN CHINA 



271 



mountains are covered with orchards, or are cut into 
terraces whose beautiful pale-green color shows that 




Irrigation of crops near Foochow. Raising water by treading 

they are being used for rice. Everywhere the rice 
grows in standing water green with scum. Men and 
buffaloes are busily at work turning endless chains fitted 
with buckets which lift the water from terrace to terrace. 
In southern China, where the monsoon rains begin earlier 
than in the north, the first rains are usually very severe. 
In April and May freshets often rush down the moun- 
tains, sweeping away the rice and destrojdng the crops 
of the season. 

The Unwarlike Spirit of China. Foochow is one of the 
few great cities of China which have Manchu garrisons. 
When the Manchus conquered China, nearly three hun- 
dred years ago, they put garrisons of their own soldiers in 
various cities to prevent the Chinese from rebelling. Dur- 
ing all the years since that time the Manchu soldiers have 
lived a lazy life. They have done no work, because the 
government has paid them for being soldiers. They 



2 72 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

have had to fight very little, because the Chinese are a 
peaceful people and rarely make war except when famine 
or trouble rouses them. Their character illustrates the 
way in which prolonged isolation may cause a once war- 
like people to become mild and fond of peace at any price. 
The Chinese to-day regard the profession of soldier 
as ignoble and unworthy of a man of high position. 

In some ways the unwarlike character of the Chinese 
is a serious defect. For ages they have been superior to 
the nations around them. Long ago they fought and 
conquered, but during the past two or three thousand 
years or more they have rarely met an enemy. Invaders 
have come into the northern parts of the country, to be 
sure, but the vast majority of the Chinese have never 
seen them and have only heard of them by rumor. 
Shut away from the rest of the world and under no 
necessity to fight, the Chinese have graduall}^ lost the 
warlike spirit. In itself this may be a good thing, but 
with it there has gone a loss of ambition and of the 
aggressive character which makes people undertake 
hard tasks and delight in finishing them in spite of 
difficulties. Formerly most nations were trained in this 
spirit by fighting. In modern times, when fighting is 
less admired, the same spirit is fostered by explor- 
ing and settling new lands, by making inventions 
and discoveries, by the expansion of commerce, or 
by the spreading abroad of religious and scientific 
ideas in the face of opposition. China has done none of 
these things for many hundred years. Unless her 
people awaken to the necessity of greater ambition and 
aggressiveness, the country is not likely to progress 
rapidly. Japan has far outstripped her ancient teacher, 
largely because the Japanese are one of the most aggres-)|3, 

sive and ambitious of races. 

II 
(f 
.i 



SOUTHERN CHINA 273 

Chinese Amusements. The degenerate soldiers of the 
Manchu garrison of Foochow are only one of many 
evidences that in former times the Chinese were a more 
energetic race than now. Another such evidence is seen 
in the Dragon Festival, which is observed in the spring 
throughout most of China. Foochow is as good a place as 
any in which to see the festival. The river is covered 
with long, narrow boats full of men. Sometimes there 
are as many as sixty men in one boat, all paddling for 
dear life. Some of the boats dart hither and thither. 
Others race, while the crowds on the river banks yell and 
cheer, as Americans do at a ball game. The boats are 
supposed to be looking for a certain wise man who fell 
into the river hundreds of years ago and was drowned. 

Although the Chinese have other festivals, this is the 
only one where they take any violent exercise. They 
think it a very silly thing for Americans and Europeans 
to play games like tennis and football, where they get 
all tired out. Chinese men often fly kites, but they do 
not like to do anything active. The children are much 
like their parents and have very few games. Perhaps 
the Chinese have so much work to do that they have 
not much energy left for games. 

The New Year's Festival. The greatest festival in 
China is New Year's Day, which comes in February. 
Everybody then takes two weeks' vacation. Every 
family cooks the best food that it can afford, which 
is often merely wheat cakes or dumplings of flour 
flavored with meat. All who are able to do so put 
on new clothes, and the others don their brightest old 
clothes. Those who are away always try to get home, 
even more than people do in America at Christmas 
and Thanksgiving. 

On the last evening of the old year the whole family 



274 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



goes through the ceremony of making offerings and 
saying prayers to their ancestors. The next morning 




New Year's Day in China. Two Chinese girls meeting on 
the street are exchanging greetings 

the men, not the boys and girls, touch off bunch after 
bunch of firecrackers. Then they all go to the family 
graveyard with offerings for the dead ; and after that the 
men and boys of the younger generation call on all their 
friends and relatives. At every place they are offered 
something to eat. It is not polite to refuse, so they eat 
far more than is good for them. 

The Chinese, as we have seen, are the most indus- 
trious people in the world, but at New Year's time they 
give themselves up entirely to feasting and playing. As 
they have few good amusements, many spend the time 
in smoking opium and in gambling. Merchants do not 
take down their shutters, but one can hear the clerks 
noisily gambling inside. Innkeepers will not open their 
doors, but landlord and servants are all gambling 
together within. They will not stop to feed a traveler's 
animals or to get him a meal. "Go away," they call, 



SOUTHERN CHINA 275 

when the traveler pounds on the door. "This is no time 
to travel. You ought to know better than to interfere 
with other people's pleasure!" 

Opium Smoking. Gambling and opium smoking are 
the two worst vices in China. Opium is made from a 
species of large poppy with beautiful flowers of various 
pale shades of red, pink, purple, and lavender, as well as 
white. After the petals have fallen, the seed vessels 
grow large and juicy. Men and women cut gashes in them 
with little knives so that the juice runs out. It dries 
into a sticky gum, from which opium is extracted. Those 
who smoke the drug become absolutely stupid. If a man 
once begins to smoke opium he grows very fond of 
it, for it makes him forget his troubles; but he soon loses 
all interest in his work. iVfter a few years he becomes 
even more useless and more to be pitied than a drunkard. 
The Chinese government forbids the use of opium and 
tries hard to prevent it. Little by little the people are 
beginning to realize how much harm it does. 

Debt-Paying. We ought to mention one other new- 
year habit — a good one. On or before the last day 
of the old year everyone is supposed to pay all his debts. 
Most people do this, for the Chinese as a race are very 
honest; but many are so popr, or ^o much in debt, that 
they cannot pay everything. Early one New Year's 
morning a Chinese was seen going about the streets with 
a lighted lantern. "What are you doing with that lan- 
tern?" asked an American who chanced to meet him. 
"It is light enough to see without it. The sun is up." 

"Oh," answered the Chinese, "Wan Lee owes me ten 
dollars. Last night I went around to his house to get 
it, but he knew I would come and so took care not to be 
at home. I am going around this morning to catch him 
by surprise, but I don't want to hurt his feelings. You 



276 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

know it is not proper to ask a man to pay a debt after 
the New Year has come in, so I am carrying a lantern as 
a sign that I think it is still last night." 

The Chinese are very fond of pretending. They will 
do almost anything in order not to seem impolite. 

Chinese Tea. Fokien is one of the best places in the 
world for tea. Its climate is so warm that almost no 
snow falls in winter, and the granite rocks of the 
mountains furnish just the sort of soil that the tea bush 
likes. The bush is something like that of the huckleberry. 
The plants are set out in rows from three to five feet 
apart each way. They are kept down to a height of 
about a foot and a half, since small bushes have softer 
leaves than large ones. In April, June, and Septem*ber, 
Chinese women, girls, boys, and sometimes men pick all 
but the larger leaves and put them in piles where they 
wilt in the sun for a day. Next they are placed in bam- 
boo baskets and are trampled upon by barefooted men 
to break the stems and stiff parts. Then they are rubbed 
with the hands to make them roll up. Finally they are 
dried completely. The most delicate kinds are dried only 
in the sun, but most of the tea which comes to America is 
dried in ovens. The best tea is made from the smallest 
leaves and buds. 

The people who pick tea are paid only ten to twenty 
cents a day. A good picker can pick eight or ten pounds 
of green leaves, which make only two or three pounds of 
dry tea. If the pickers had to be paid one or two dollars 
a day, as they would in America, tea would cost so much 
that only the rich could drink it. It is well for tea 
drinkers that the people of China, Japan, and India do 
not receive such wages as those of America and Europe. 

Travelers and Strange Sights. The men who travel 
in Fokien to buy tea see some odd sights. In the 



SOUTHERN CHINA 277 

mountains near Foochow one of them met some men 
with wheelbarrows, which they had to lift over steep, 




Itu:trant barbers on their zvay to Foochow, plying their trade 
by the roadside 

rocky places in the path. Next came a man driving 
black pigs with grass shoes on their feet. A little later, 
in a pretty wooded valley beside a mountain brook, the 
tea buyer stopped to talk with some men who were 
carrying big baskets full of ducks. 

"We are taking the ducks to feed in the rice fields near 
Foochow," said one of the Chinese. "Up in the moun- 
tains the fields are all dry. How briskly you walk for so 
old a man. How old are you?" 

"Thirty-two," said the tea buyer, who was an English- 
man. "How old did you think?" 

"I thought you must be a hundred," replied the Chi- 
nese, "your hair is so white." 

The Chinese like to be asked their age, so this ques- 
tion was quite polite. The Englishman had very light 
brown hair. As the Chinese all have straight black hair, 
they thought the Englishman must once have had the 
same kind and that now it had changed. 



278 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

A Buddhist Holy Man. When the Chinese understood 
about the EngUshman's hair, they asked another ques- 
tion : * ' Have you seen the holy man who lives here on the 
hillside? Long ago his soul lived in a dog. When 
the dog died the soul went into an ox ; when that died, the 
soul was born in a baby boy, who became a pirate when 
he grew up. At last the pirate died and his soul was 
born again in this man, who became a priest as soon as 
he grew up. The priest was so sorry for the evil that he 
had done in former lives that he had some friends 
build a little room of rough stones around him, leaving 
no door or window and only a few holes. There he has 
lived for twenty-four years without coming out. He is 
very holy. When he is born again he will be a saint." 

The Englishman went to see the so-called holy man, 
who proved to be very dirty and disagreeable. His 
finger nails were three inches long and looked like great 
claws. Each one was inclosed in a sheath of bamboo 
to keep it from being broken. Many Chinese let their 
nails grow as long as possible, to show that they do not 
work ; for people who work are sure to break their nails. 
Fashionable ladies often sheathe their nails in silver. 

Buddhism. The holy man with the long nails was a 
Buddhist. Long ago the Buddhist religion came to 
China from India. It teaches many good things, but 
it is mixed with a great deal that is not right or true. 
It is one of the great religions of the world, and a devout 
Buddhist is as noble and good as a man of any religion. 
The practices of Buddhism, however, like the practices 
of so many religions, are so distasteful to us that it is 
hard for us to appreciate its truly admirable qualities. 
Buddhism has many followers in China. The other 
religions are Taoism, which teaches a belief in all manner 
of evil spirits, and Confucianism, which teaches the 



SOUTHERN CHINA 



279 



worship of ancestors. Many Chinese believe in all three 
religions. The Buddhists believe that when a person dies 



i i' *' J .' 


3* ■ 


'W.' 


s m 




r|| 


^^^K^^S^U^^j^ mMl 






#■-:; .»> 






-. ^" 



Tablets before the shrine of a Chinese god, offered by grateful 
worshipers in retiirn for blessings granted 

his soul goes into a new-born child or animal. One per- 
son, they think, may lead a hundred lives or more, unless 
he becomes good enough to become a Buddha or saint. 

Sometimes people pray to be bom anew in a different 
condition. At a temple in Ningpo a missionary saw 
two or three thousand women praying. A bystander 
explained to him that they were praying to be born 
again as men. Their lives as women were so miserable 
that they wanted to die. All Chinese women, however, 
are not miserable, and some are much honored. At a 
city gate one often sees arches or tablets erected by per- 
mission of the Emperor in memory of virtuous widows. 

The Vegetation of Southern China. South, of Foochow 
the climate is so warm that crops can be raised in winter 
as well as in summer. Upon the terraced hillsides the 
vivid green of rice fields alternates with the darker tint 
of the sugar cane. On the slopes are tea plantations 



28o ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

and near them fields of cotton, bright with gay colored 
blossoms, and orange trees standing in fragrant, fruitful 
rows. Elsewhere splendid vistas are formed by the 
slender trunks of palm trees, which yield fibers and 
other useful products. Among the trees of southern 
China some of the most peculiar species produce oil 
and tallow from which candles are made. Everywhere 
thickets of bamboos wave their feathery heads in the 
winds, thirty feet above the ground. 

The Bamboo. In southern China the rice plant is 
the most useful of all the things that grow, because it 
furnishes most of the food of the people. The next 
plant in usefulness is the bamboo. If a man wants to 
do so, he can have his whole house of bamboo, including 
walls, roof, and the mats on the floor. At his meals he 
may sit on a bamboo chair before a bamboo table. At 
dinner he may eat, with bamboo chopsticks, soft, green 
bamboo sprouts which were cooked over a bamboo fire, 
and served in a bamboo bowl. Then a servant may 
wash off the table with a bamboo cloth. Meanwhile, 
the master is likely to fan himself with a bamboo fan. 
Probably he will follow the common tropical custom 
of lying down for a siesta during the hot part of the 
day, from one o'clock to four, upon a bed and pillow 
likely to be of bamboo. When he gets up, he may light 
a bamboo pipe, and, taking a brush with a handle of the 
same material, write on paper made of bamboo. Finally, 
he may put on his bamboo sandals, take an umbrella 
and basket — both of the same useful plant — and cross 
a suspension bridge made of bamboo. 

The Si-kiang. The Si-kiang, or West River, the great 
stream of southern China, rises in the remote plateau 
of Yunnan. There, as is so common in relatively 
inaccessible regions, the people are of various races. 



SOUTHERN CHINA 



281 




282 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

Part are wild natives called Lolos and Miaotse, who 
probably were driven into the mountains when the 
Chinese invaded China thousands of years ago. Others 
are a mixed race who profess Mohammedanism, and 
still others, pure Chinese. Farther down the river all the 
people are Chinese. Throughout most of its course the 
Si-kiang flows among mountains. At its mouth, how- 
ever, there is a delta plain like that of the Hwang-ho and 
of the Yangtse-kiang. As might be expected here, the 
population is very dense, and there are several great 
cities. Of these the chief is easily Canton — the first of 
all Chinese cities to be visited by Europeans. 

The River People of Canton. Canton is such a crowded 
place and there is so much business on the river that 
nearly 300,000 people, or more than as many as are 
found in Kansas City, live in boats on the water. There 
are many people there who have never walked on the 
land during their whole lives. It is said that the babies 
bom on the boats can swim when first thrown into the 
water — almost as soon as they can walk. Their parents 
always strap a joint of bamboo on their backs to keep 
them afloat and to afford a good handle with which to 
fish them up if they fall into the water. Some of the 
boats at Canton are very beautiful. They have eyes 
painted in front, for, as the Chinese say, "How can 
a boat go straight if it has no eyes?" 

A Nation Apart. China is full of strange and interest- 
ing things, as we have already seen. Many of them are 
due wholly, or in part, to the fertility of the plains and 
basins watered by the abundant monsoon rains. Others 
are caused by the mountains and plateaus and sea, which 
till recently have shut China ofif from the rest of the 
world. Many habits and characteristics of the Chinese 
have arisen because of the great density of population 



SOUTHERX CHINA 283 

and the frequent famines. These famines are caused 
sometimes by floods, but more often by droughts. 
Because of all these things the Chinese have always been 
a nation apart from the rest of the world. Their cus- 
toms, their language, and their mode of thinking are all 
different from those of the Western World. 

Dense populations and frequent famines cause great 
poverty. Poverty causes ignorance, and ignorance tends 
to encourage superstition. Superstition makes people 
ver}^ unwilling to change their habits, and so the Chinese 
have changed but little in a thousand years. On the 
other hand, the difficulties of life have made the Chinese 
very industrious, very economical, and very patient; 
for otherwise they could not live. After ages of isolation, 
China at last is in touch with the rest of the world. She 
is beginning to learn new lessons after a long period of 
stagnation. There are signs that, as more and more of 
her people become enlightened, ambition will arise and 
a spirit of worthy aggressiveness which will lead her to 
get rid of famines, poverty, gambling, opium smoking, 
and superstition. The process may be a long one, but 
when it is finished the many good qualities of China may 
make her equal to any nation in the world. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

INDO-CHINA AND THE MALAY PENINSULA 

Position and People. The southeastern corner of Asia 
does not properly belong to eastern or to southern 
Asia. It is well called Indo-China, tor it lies between 
India and China without being a part of either. Its 
people are- a mixture of the yellow-skinned Mongolian 
race of eastern Asia and the olive-skinned Caucasian 
race of northern India. To these has been added the 
brown Malay race which gives its name to the long 
southern peninsula. 

The Races Which Have Come to Indo-China by Sea. 
It is easy to reach Indo-China by sea on all sides save 
the north. Centuries ago the Malays came in square- 
rigged boats from the islands of Sumatra and Java and 
occupied the southern peninsula. Hundreds of thou- 
sands of Chinese have settled along the east coast, com- 
ing partly by land but chiefly by sea. On the west coast 
the English from India have advanced, step by step, and 
have developed an enormous trade, which has caused 
the growth of great cities such as Penang,or George Town, 
and Singapore. More recently the French have come to 
Indo-China, and are trying to do on the east coast what 
England has done on the west. 

The Races Which Have Come by Land. The British 
on the west, the Malays on the south, and the Chinese 
and French on the east have come to Indo-China by 
sea or along the coast. The majority of the people, 
however, came by land from the north. On that side 
the great plateaus of Tibet and Yunnan extend down 
into Indo-China. • As we have seen in an earlier chapter, 

284 



INDO-CHINA AND THE MALAY PENINSULA 285 

the tremendous river gorges and lofty mountains which 
diversify the plateaus form a barrier which separates 
India from China. Nevertheless, tribe after tribe has 
crossed this inhospitable region and has gradu- 
ally pushed its way southward and eastward to the 
warm fertile plains of the Songkoi, Mekong, Menam, and 
Irawadi rivers. Even now when famine comes upon the 
wild tribes of southwestern China, as it sometimes does 
in very dry years, they move to new regions in the hope 
of finding a better country. Sometimes, too, they are 
driven out by enemies. They cannot -find a living in 
the mountains and plateaus of Tibet to the north, so 
they go south into Indo-China. 

For hundreds and thousands of years tribes have kept 
coming into Indo-China, chiefly from China or Tibet but 
partly from India. To-day the country is filled with their ^. 
mixed descendants, who form the races called Annamese i 
in the east, Siamese and Shans in the middle, and Bur- j 
mese in the west. Among all the native races of ' 
Indo-China only the Siamese still remain independent. 
They have tried to learn from Europeans and to reform 
their government, and so they have not been absorbed 
by England or France. Nevertheless, much of the 
territory of Siam has been taken away The only part 
which the native kings still rule entirely is the valley of 
the Menam River. Even there the wealth of the 
country is fast passing into the hands of the energetic 
Chinese; for the Siamese, like the rest of the people of 
Indo-China, are lazy and pleasure-loving. 

Tropical Forests. With the exception of the southern 
part of Arabia the countries which we have thus far 
studied in Asia have all been situated in the Teniperate 
Belt. Indo-China lies in the Hot Belt. Its climate 
is so warm and moist that trees *and plants grow 



286 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



luxuriantly. The plains, which are flooded by rivers, 
are covered with grass and reeds, while the rest of the 



,,,**«4l!^' 






T^''' 



In a tropical forest where the ferns are thirty feet high 

country is shrouded in dense forests. Sometimes the 
forest consists of a jungle of bamboos so thick and 
interlaced with creeping plants that one cannot advance 
ten feet without stopping to cut a path. 

In other places the forest consists of huge trees rising 
a hundred feet or more. A person walking on the ground 
sees nothing but a gloomy vista of smooth tree trunks 
like the columns of a vast cathedral. Not a flicker of 
sunshine can be detected, not a rustle of leaves, and 
scarcely a sign of life or color. High above his head 
lianas, twining like huge stems of the woodbine or wild 
grape, hang from the lofty trunks in long festoons. 
Rarely a delicate orchid is visible. For days one can 
wander in such a forest and seem to be in a world 
without Hfe. But come to a clearing or climb to some 
point where the upper parts of the trees are in sight, 



INUO-CHINA AND THE MALAY PENINSULA 287 

at once all is changed. Life seems to run riot. The 
top of the forest is like a .vast green mat. The trees 
want light and air, and each strives to get above its 
neighbors. Those that are in the shade are sure to die. 
None can live except those which stretch their heads far 
up toward the sky. In the tree tops flowers of brilliant 
colors are blooming ; songless parrots and other birds of 
bright colors flit about ; and chattering monkeys swing 
from branch to branch. Here a palm raises its head 
heavily loaded with cocoanuts. Elsewhere the teak tree 
towers in stately grandeur. 

Heavy Hardwood Trees. We shall see more of the teak 
tree later. It is one of the hardwood trees for which 
tropical countries are famous. Some of the teaks are so 
hard that it is almost impossible to cut them with an 
ordinary knife. They are very heavy, too. In Siam a 
foreigner, with much difficulty, once cut some of these 
trees and made a raft. He meant to float down the 
Menam River ; but when he and his men pushed the raft 
into the water, to his great surprise it at once sank to 
the bottom. It was too heavy to float. The hardwood 
of these heavy trees is very valuable for making hand- 
some furniture. In order to float the teak down the 
rivers, the natives make rafts of bamboo, which is so 
light that it supports the heavy logs. 

We are wont to think of tropical trees as being green 
all the year round. This is not wholly true. The forest 
as a whole has a green appearance most of the time, but 
each tree sheds its leaves and takes a rest every year. 
The leaves of some trees turn red or yellow or brown just 
as they do with us. During the dr}^ season many kinds 
of trees are bare of leaves, and at this time many of them 
blossom. It is a wonderful sight to see a leafless tree 
covered with splendid red or yellow flowers like the most 



288 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

beautiful of those in our gardens. Many of the trees do 
not shed the old leaves until the new ones come out. It 
is this which makes the • tropical forest appear green 
at all seasons. 

Tropical Animals. In all parts of the world the ani- 
mals depend on the plants. If there are many plants, 
there are sure to be many wild animals unless man has 
killed them off. If the plants die down in winter or if 
they are covered with snow, it is hard for the animals. 
They can stand the cold weather of winter, but they can- 
not stand hunger. Accordingly, the number of wild 
animals grows steadily larger as one goes from cold or 
dry regions to warm, moist ones. In Indo-China wild 
creatures are found in great variety. The largest is 
the elephant, the chief beast of burden. The hippo- 
potamus and alligator live in the rivers. Tigers, leopards, 
and a host of flesh eaters live in the jungle. They catch 
the deer, antelope, and other grass-eating animals which 
feed on the abundant plant life. Tigers often eat 
people. If the natives think that one is near, they 
build a fire to frighten him away, and pray to the 
supposed spirit of the place to protect them. They 
think that the tiger is possessed of an evil genius and 
would be angry if he heard his name. So they speak 
of him in whispers, and refer to him only as '*it," or 
"that fellow." 

The tree tops are alive with monkeys, especially in the 
Malay Peninsula. Sometimes they are tamed as pets. 
One day a traveler in a Malay village wanted some 
cocoanuts. The native chief, whose guest he was, called 
to a big ape, "Go up that palm tree, and pick some 
ripe cocoanuts." The animal climbed up and carefully 
picked out three or four fine ripe ones and threw them 
dowa "Now some green ones," said the chief; and the 



INDO-CHINA AND THE MALAY PENLNSULA 289 

monkey threw down some that were almost ripe. The 
Malay then cut a round hole in each unripe nut, and 
poured out the milk, which has a pleasant, slightly 
acid taste. When the milk had been drunk, he opened 
the ripe cocoanuts for the meat. It takes a cocoanut 
fourteen months to ripen, although our fruits take only 
four or five. 

Monkeys, as everyone knows, are very fond of teasing. 
One day a crocodile lay on a sandy river bank in the sun 
with his huge rAouth wide open and his beady eyes almost 
shut. Some monkeys came along and began to tease 
him. One swung down from the trees and made little 
snatches at his mouth, taking good care not to get 
caught. Then they all wanted to do the same thing ; for 
what one does, all must do. In trying to outdo one 
another, one monkey put his hand too far into the great 
mouth. The crocodile, which had seemed to be asleep, 
suddenly snapped his jaws together, caught the poor 
monkey by the arm, and hurried off into the water with 
him. Monkeys are a good deal like people; they often get 
into trouble when they try to show off. 

Difficulty of Farming among Tropical Forests. In 
China, Persia, Turkey, and most of the countries of Asia 
the inhabitants suffer from lack of trees. In Indo-China 
exactly the opposite is the case. In the forested regions 
when the natives want to plant rice or sugar cane, they 
must first get rid of the trees. They cut them down and 
leave them to dry for a few months. ^ Then they kindle 
a fire and thus clear a space for a farm. For two or 
three years rice and other crops are raised, but by that 
time bamboos have begun to grow. The natives have 
no means of plowing deeply and are too lazy to keep the 
fields weeded. The easiest plan is to abandon the old 
clearing and make a fresh one, sometimes close at hand 



290 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

and sometimes at a distance. Outside the plains the 
whole country is dotted with clearings of this kind, 



A native village. The houses near the river are on bamboo stilts 

grown up with bamboos. When the clearing fires are 
burning, sounds like gunshots are often heard — the 
noise of exploding bamboo stems. 

The Method of Building Houses^ One might think 
that the natives of Indo-China would be sorry to change 
the location of their fields so often. They do not mind 
at all, however, not even if they have to build new 
houses. It is an easy matter to build a house in Indo- 
China, for there is an unlimited supply of wood close at 
hand, and the fronds of a palm tree make a fine thatch. 
The houses do not have to be warm. The only necessity 
is that they afford shelter from the rain. 

In moist, tropical countries malarial fevers prevail. 
Even the natives suffer from them, and Europeans are 
likely to die from them unless great care is used. When 
one sleeps on or near the ground he is very apt to get 
the fever, especially during the floods of the rainy 
seai:on. Moreover there is some danger that tigers will 



INDO-CHINA AND THE MALAY PENINSULA 291 

come and kill people lying on the ground. Accordingly, 
in Indo-China a large proportion of the houses are little 
huts consisting chiefly of thick-thatched roofs with a 
steep slope to shed the rain. These huts are raised to 
a height of five feet or more, on stilts of bam.boo stuck 
into the earth. The walls are scarcely more than mats. 
The floor is, in many cases, nothing but poles laid an 
inch or two apart. All the waste materials from the 
house are put through the cracks in the floor; pigs and 
other animals are tied underneath, and the ground under 
the houses is 'often filthy. 

Bathing. The people, themselves, are clean. In most 
parts of Indo-China they bathe a great deal, as people 
who are well clothed must do in a warm country. In 
the north the natives bathe freely in the rivers, not 
caring who sees them. The inhabitants of the Malay 
Peninsula, however, are Mohammedans and do not like 
to be seen when they undress, so they build bathing 
sheds just large enough for a single person. Around 
these sheds they put fences to keep out crocodiles. 

The Effect of a Warm Climate. It is easy to make a 
living in Indo-China. The people who raise rice on the 
plains or those who catch fish in the sea or those who 
cultivate palm trees and bananas in the hills can all get 
food enough for themselves and their families with very 
little work. They do not have to store up much for the 
future, for crops ripen at almost all times of the year. 
The climate is so warm that no one feels like working. 
All these things make the people of Indo-China lazy 
and idle. They do not want to work; and they do not 
care whether they have much or little to wear or to 
look at, so long as they have enough to eat. 

One would think that in a country so rich in food there 
would be a very dense population, but this is not the case. 



^92 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

So many natives die of fevers and epidemics, so many 
are killed by wild beasts or by their human enemies, and 
so many perish in slave raids that the population has 
never become dense like that of China and northern 
India. Many of these things are changing now. The 
constant stream of Chinese coming into the country and 
the influence of European trade and government are 
beginning to check some evils — such as constant wars 
and slavery — and the population is increasing. 

Monsoon Rains. Although the climate of Indo-China 
is always warm, because the country lies so near the 
equator, there are two distinct seasons. One is the time 
of the northeast monsoon — a wind which blows very 
steadily from the northeast, bringing rain to the coast 
of Annam and to most parts of the Malay Peninsula. 
West of the mountains of Annam, however, the wind 
has lost its moisture and accordingly the winter months, 
during which it blows, are a dry season. In spite of the 
high temperature plants do not grow well during this 
period. In the other season, from May to September, 
the wind blows from the southwest or south. As the 
wind goes toward the north and rises over the many 
mountains, it grows cooler and cooler. Therefore, it 
gives up the abundant moisture which it has gathered 
in the Indian Ocean. Except on the east coast of 
Annam, which is shut off by high mountains, heavy 
rains fall in all parts of the country, and plants thrive 
luxuriantly. 

Contrast Between the Wet and Dry Seasons. A good 
example of the difference between the dry season and the 
wet season is seen in the plain or low plateau of Khorat, 
lying a little northeast of Bangkok between the Menam 
and Mekong rivers in Siam. A caravan was once cross- 
ing this plain in summer with oxcarts. Every day rain 



INDO-CHINA AND THE MALAY PENINSULA 293 

fell, as it does with us sometimes in summer when, as we 
say, the water falls in sheets. The air was so damp that 
one's clothes felt wet and sticky all the time, and shoes 
or other articles shut up in a chest, in a day or two, 
grew white with mold. In the best places the rough 
road was ankle deep in mud, and in the bad places the 
clumsy oxcarts sank to the hubs. Sometimes the travel- 
ers came to a low plain three or four miles wide, and had 
to wade across it in water up to the knees. Rivers rushed 
along, carrying huge trunks of trees and spreading far 
over their banks. Sometimes it was possible to wade 
across them; at other times rafts had to be built. One 
day a raft was built beside such a river. When it was 
pushed out into the broad, muddy current, the raging 
stream carried it»away with a rush, breaking the ropes 
that held it. The caravan went upstream to a place 
where there was less current. That day the rain slack- 
ened, and the next day it stopped. By the following 
morning the water had gone down four feet, and the raft 
was on dry land several miles down the river and a 
quarter of a mile from the diminished stream. 

Five months later, near the end of the dry seasorP, the 
same travelers passed that wa\^ again. They found their 
raft, not beside a rushing river, but near a few filthy 
pools of greenish water, in which pinkish-gray buffaloes 
had been wallowing. In places where they waded to the 
knees in water on the former journey, they now crossed 
brown plains which had been green with grass a month 
or two earlier. Now, too, the ankle-deep mud was 
replaced by fine dust which filled the road and was blown 
in clouds by the wind. Water was so scarce that on 
some nights the animals went thirsty. 

In the Malay Peninsula rain falls in fair abundance 
at all seasons. In all other parts of Indo-China there is a 



294 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

wonderful contrast between the dry and the wet seasons. 
In the mountains the water runs off rapidly. In the great 
plains, where most of the people live, it cannot flow away 
so fast and, therefore, floods the whole country. In such 
places it is easy to see that it is a good plan to build 
houses on stilts, or to live in floating house boats, as 
hundreds of thousands of people do at Bangkok. 

Tongking and the French Colonies. We have spoken 
of many ways in which all parts of Indo-China are much 
alike. There are many other ways in which the various 
parts differ. The French colony of Tongking, in the 
northeast, is much like southern China in the habits of 
its people and in its climate and scenery. North of the 
rich delta of the Songkoi River the coast is bordered by 
a wonderful series of islands and drowned river mouths 
forming bays. The islands are composed of limestone 
which rises in steep cliffs to flat tops where green trees 
can be seen peeping over the edge. Allong Bay, in 
this region, is surrounded by great coal mines. One 
layer of coal is about eighty feet thick, and has an 
extent of hundreds of square miles. In America a layer 
of coal twelve feet thick is considered large. 

The French have not been wise in some respects. 
They have tried to keep other people away from their 
colonies and to preserve all the trade for themselves 
by charging heavy taxes on all foreign goods. This 
has made it difficult for the colonies to grow. In 
another way the French have been extremely wise. They 
have constructed beautiful cities. Hanoi, the capital of 
Tongking, is one of the finest cities in the East. Its 
wide streets are well paved and its buildings are hand- 
some. Everything has been done to keep it clean and to 
prevent the fevers which are so deadly to Europeans 
and Americans. 



INDO-CHINA AND THE MALAY PENINSULA 295 

Annam. The coast of Annam is in some ways like 
the west coast of Asia Minor. Since the time, long ago, 
when the border of the land in this region sank below the 
sea, the short rivers running down from the mountains 
have filled up the gulfs with mud. To-day the habit- 
able part of Annam consists of a great many little deltas 
forming a fringe of rich land between the sea and the bar- 
ren hills. The strong northeast monsoon winds blowing 
against the coast make navigation difficult. Turan is 
the only good harbor. In some places the wind has 
caused currents which have built up long sand bars, 
behind which are pretty lagoons. Near Hue, the capi- 
tal, a canal thirty miles long follows such lagoons. 

The Annamese, with their big lips and high cheek bones, 
are an ugly people in appearance. They have the repu- 
tation of being surly and dishonest but fairly industrious 
for a tropical race. A proverb current in Indo-China 
shows how they are regarded. "A slave," runs the 
proverb, "is valuable according to his honesty. A Lao 
from the mountain districts is worth one hundred sixty 
dollars, a Cambodian from the Mekong delta is worth 
one hundred dollars, and an Annamese is such a liar 
that he is worth only forty dollars." In Annam, as in 
all parts of Indo-China except the Malay Peninsula, 
the women do more work than the men, not only at 
home but in public. In the markets women and girls 
tend the shops. On the streets they go about bearing 
on their shoulders long poles on the ends of which hang 
pails of fish, bunches of vegetables, or baskets of ducks. 

Cochin-China : The Mekong and the Cambodian Ruins. 
In approaching the delta of the Mekong — the southern 
part of the French possessions — the shore appears low, 
flat, and uninteresting. The sea is bordered by somber 
groves of the mangrove, which grows in salt water and 



296 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



sends down roots from the branches. Behind the 
mangroves a strip of wet land supports a kind of palm 
tree much used for thatching roofs. Then come broad 
rice lands. Saigon, the capital, lies on a tributary of the 
Mekong. Like many other cities lying on the deltas of 
great rivers, it is some miles inland from the sea. It 
is a strange, lazy city. As one approaches it, houses are 
seen on stilts, with boats tethered under them. In the 
suburbs some of the houses are set on pillars of brick, 
while around them, surrounded by walls of cacti, rich 
gardens contain orange trees, pomeloes, cocoa palms, 
breadfruits, and bananas. 

A large lake called Tale Sap lies two hundred miles 
fiorthwest of Saigon. When the Mekong River is in 
flood during the rainy season, a branch flows into the 
great lake, causing it to rise. During the dry season the 
river falls rapidly, and the water from the lake begins to 




View of the water front at Saigon 



INDO-CHINA AND THE MALAY PENINSULA 297 

flow the other way, into the river. Thus the level of 
the lake varies thirty or even forty feet from season to 
season. It is three times as large in the early fall as in 
the early spring. Many fishermen live on its banks in 
houses perched high on bam.boo posts. When the lake 
rises they take down their houses and move them back; 
when it falls they move their houses forward, so that 
they always live on the shore. 

Many wonderful ruins are located north of the great 
inland lake of Tale Sap. A thousand or more years ago 
immigrants came into the country, probably from north- 
ern India. They had much more energy than the present 
inhabitants, for they had lived in a land where life was 
less easy and the climate more bracing than in Cochin - 
China. In honor of the Buddhist religion, which they 
brought from their former home, the new settlers built 
vast temples, which are still among the most wonderful 
buildings in the world. One finds them even in the 
midst of the uninhabited forest. Tropical trees now 
grow where throngs of people once gathered to worship, 
and climbing vines drape the walls and pull them to 
pieces. From top to bottom the older and better 
buildings are made of stone, including even the roofs, 
which are so carefully hewed and fitted that the stones 
still stand in place , The natives of Cambodia care little 
now for their great buildings. Almost the only visitors 
are foreigners. 

Siam: The Tides of the Menam. Bangkok, a little 
way inland from the mouth of the Menam River, is one 
of the great cities of the East. Here the King of Siam 
has his gaudy palace and his stables for the sacred white 
elephants. Here too one finds beautiful modern streets 
and many signs of progress, but most of the people 
live in the fashion of their fathers, in houses perched 



298 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

on piles or in boats on the river. Some of the people 
who live in boats pay rent for the places where they 
cast anchor. If they are not satisfied with the landlord 
or cannot pay the rent, they need only to pull up anchor 
and row away. Moving for them is a very easy matter. 

The tides of the sea at Bangkok are very strange. In 
almost every other part of the world two high tides 
occur each day. At Bangkok at certain times there 
is only one, because for some peculiar reason tides 
coming from different directions meet and offset one 
another. If a high tide occurs at noon, there is none at 
midnight, as there would be in other places. After a 
day or two a little tide begins to be felt halfway between 
the noon tides. Day by day this increases and the 
other decreases until the two are equal. Then after 
ten or twelve days the tide which was formerly large 
disappears, and the one which began twelve days before 
is now the only tide. At Bangkok, as at most cities on 
deltas near the mouths of rivers, the tides are of great 
importance. A sand bar lies across the mouth of the 
Menam which can be crossed by steamers only at high 
tide. Many large ships have to be loaded outside the 
bar by means of Chinese sailboats. 

Elephants. Siam is often called the Land of the 
White Elephant. White elephants are not really white 
but only pale gray or spotted with white. They are 
albinos. The Siamese believe that the soul of a king 
lives in every white elephant, which therefore deserves 
worship. Ordinary elephants are very useful in most 
parts of Indo-China and also in India. Every year a 
royal elephant hunt is conducted in Siam. Hundreds 
of men go out into the jungle, and place themselves at 
intervals of a few hundred feet so as to form a circle 
many miles in circumference. At a set time all move 



INDO-CHINA AND THE MALAY PENINSULA 299 

toward the center, driving all the elephants within the 
circle inward to the vicinity of a great stockade. The 
huge animals are finally driven into this stockade by men 
mounted on the heads of tame elephants. Sometimes two 
hundred elephants are driven in at once. The great 
beasts are very wild and it is hard work to catch them. A 
long bamboo rope is thrown around the foot of an animal 
and the ends are fastened to two posts close together. 
Then as the elephant struggles to get free, the rope is 
gradually pulled in until the animal is fastened close to 
the posts. Next a tame elephant is brought up and 
is made to push the wild elephant over, after which 
another leg is tied. 

When an elephant has been kept hungry a few days, 
it grows less wild, and after a little it learns to obey its 
master and to work in various ways most cleverly. The 
driver sits on the animal's great head and directs him 
by pressing with one leg or the other behind the big 
ears. When the elephant does not behave well, the 
driver prods him with a sharp hook. Passengers are 
carried on elephants' backs in big saddles called how- 
dahs, which have on each side a little box to carry 
one person. The elephant is the only animal which can 
be used as a beast of burden in the thick jungle, espe- 
cially in the wet season. When it comes to a tree blocking 
the way, it puts its great head against it and pushes it 
aside. If branches hang down where they would hit 
the passengers, it breaks them off with its trunk. 

Teak. One of the greatest uses of elephants is in 
piling the heavy logs of the teak tree. The logs are cut 
in the highlands of upper Siam and Burma. First a 
tree is gir41ed, that is the bark is cut off in a ring near 
the bottom, which causes the tree to die. It is left for 
two years to dry, after which it is cut down and then 



300 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



carried by an elephant to a river, down which it floats on 
a lumber raft to the sea. To get a teak tree to Bangkok 




Copyright by Underwood & Underwood 

Elephants piling teak in a timber yard in Rangoon 

takes four years from the time it is first girdled. When 
the trees are to be piled up or loaded into vessels, the 
elephants lift the logs very carefully and balance them 
on their tusks. The intelligent animals carry them where 
the driver bids, and place them in symmetrical piles. 

The elephant is the largest and strongest of animals, 
but it is afraid of many things. A trained elephant 
often shies at the sight of a small dog. The great crea- 
tures are said to be extremely afraid of mice. When they 
see one, they lift up their trunks and trumpet in abject 
terror for fear the mouse will run up their long nostrils. 
Yet the same elephants are not at all afraid of tigers. 

Burma: Rice. In all parts of Indo-China rice grows 
abundantly. The Irawadi valley in Burma is perhaps the 
best place for it. Rangoon is the greatest rice market 
in the world. Rice grows in a husk like oats. The 
husk, which sticks very closely to the grain, is removed 



INDO-CHINA AND THE MAL.\Y PENINSULA 301 

by pounding the kernels gently in a mill or by putting 
the grains between millstones which are just far enough 
apart to tear off the coat, and which often break the 
kernels. The inner skin of rice contains much food and 
ought to be eaten with the rest of the grain, but in 
America and Europe people like to have their rice pure 
white. To make it so, the husked rice is run through 
a mill where it is thrown against soft leather again and 
again, thus wearing off the surface and making the 
grains white and polished, and at the same time greatly 
injuring their taste and their value as food. 

The Burmese. The Burmese are handsome people and 
some of the women are beautiful. Both men and women 
are very fond of pretty clothes and, like little children, 
love to have people look at them and praise them. In 
the mountains of Burma there are many wild tribes 
who wear almost no clothing. Instead of putting on 
gay garments, they prick figures in the skin and rub in 
blue, red, or brown coloring matter, so that their naked 
bodies are covered with designs like those of our wall 
papers. They think that this tattooing, as it is called, 
prevents them from becoming sick and makes it impos- 
sible for their enemies to hurt them. 

Religion and Education. The Burmese and Siamese 
are Buddhists and are very religious people, and their 
countries are full of pagodas and monasteries. The 
monks who live in the monasteries wear long yellow 
robes. They go around the country begging in order 
to support the monasteries. Being forbidden to ask 
people for money, they merely hold out their bowls 
for the passer-by to put in whatever he chooses. All 
Burmese and Siamese men are supposed to become 
monks for some part of their lives, but do not do so. 
All who want an education, however, must go to the 



302 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

monasteries, for there are no other schools except a few 
which have been estabHshed recently. When parents 
want their boys to study, they send them to a monas- 
tery to stay two or three years. Unfortunately, the 
monks teach them almost nothing except to read the 
holy Buddhist books. Not many centuries ago our 
own ancestors were educated in much the same way. 

The Malays. While Burmese women have more free- 
dom than those of any other Asiatic country except 
modern Japan, Malay women are kept shut up like 
those of Turkey. They are never allowed to see any 
men except their husbands, fathers, and brothers. If a 
man accidentally touches a veiled woman in a crowded 
street, it is considered a deadly insult. This is partly 
because the Malays are Mohammedans and partly be- 
cause they have fiery tempers. 

The Malay Peninsula: Tin and Edible Bird's-nests. 
The forests of the Malay Peninsula are the densest of 
all those in Indo-China. All parts of the peninsula con- 
tain tin, which is found, like gold, in beds of gravel, and 
looks like black sand. One of the most unusual products 
of this region is edible bird's-nests, which the Chinese 
eat. They are found on islands off the east coast of 
Indo-China from Annam to Singapore. They are made 
by a species of sw^allow or swift which gathers a special 
variety of seaweed and weaves it into a nest. The nests 
are rather tasteless to Europeans. When cooked they 
look like the kind of maccaroni called vermicelli. They 
are so valuable that some of the Malay chiefs, who own 
the islands, keep soldiers there to prevent the nests 
from being stolen. The swifts build their nests on the 1 
sides of cliffs in almost inaccessible places. The only 
way to get them is by means of long poles or by letting j 
men down with ropes from the top of the cliff. 



INDO-CHINA AND THE MALAY PENINSULA 303 

At the present time half the people of the Malay 
Peninsula are Chinese. They work in the mines, raise 
pepper, export wood, and engage in many kinds of 
business. Many of them live in the two great cities of 
Penang and Singapore. At the beginning of the 
nineteenth century neither place had any inhabitants. 
To-day they are two of the world's important cities. 
Their growth is due to the extensive use of steamships- 
and to the freedom which England has granted to all 
people to come to them and trade without paying 
taxes or customs. These two places, small in area but 
great in business, are of more importance to the world 
than all the rest of the Malay Peninsula. Trade worth 
millions of dollars passes through them every year. 
They show how great an influence England has had upon 
the trade of the East. In the next chapter we shall see. 
how England is shaping the history of India and is 
altering the life of the people of that great country. 



CHAPTER XXIV 



INDIA 



The Diversity of India. People often speak of India 
as if it were a single country inhabited by a single race. 
Really it consists of various countries inhabited by 
diverse races speaking many languages and professing 
several religions. India is only half as large as the 
United States, but it contains between three and four 
times as many people. In place of the one language 
which is spoken practically everywhere among us, India 
has one hundred twenty languages. Hindi, used in 
a large part of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, is spoken by as 
many people as there are in the United States. Bengali, 




Among the snow-crowned summits of the Himalayas in 
north India 

304 



INDIA 



305 



which is used in the province of Bengal at the mouth 
of the Ganges and Brahmaputra, is spoken by half as 




.4 home characteristic of the coast region of the Western Ghats, 
south India 

many. Each of eighteen other languages is the tongue 
of from one to twenty million people ; and of the remain- 
ing hundred, each is spoken by from a thousand to a 
million. 

Imagine what the United States would be like if each 
section were inhabited by a separate race with its own 
language and habits. To illustrate: Suppose that Cali- 
fornia were full of Chinese, and Oregon and Washington 
of Japanese. Let the ancient Aztecs, who lived in cliff 
dwellings, still inhabit Arizona and New Mexico. Put 
Spaniards in Texas and Florida, and French in the inter- 
vening states. Now imagine the rest of the southern 
states to be inhabited by various tribes of negroes still 
speaking the languages of Africa and worshiping Afri- 
can fetishes. Lastly let Pennsylvania be inhabited by 
Poles and Russians, New York by Dutch, New England 
and the Mississippi Valley by EngHsh, and the moun- 
tainous parts of the country by strong tribes of savage 



3o6 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

Indians. Suppose that each of these races kept apart 
by itself; then the United States would be somewhat 
like India. 

The Religions of India: The Hindus. In America 
we can rarely judge of a man's religion by his dress. 
Most of us are Christians, either Protestant or Catholic, 
and a few are Jews ; but that makes very little difference 
in the ordinary business of life. If we go into a store 
or a restaurant in the city, we have no idea whether 
the clerks and waiters are of one religion or another. 
We do not care much, provided we get what we want. 
In India it is very different. A person who has lived 
there long will look at a man and say, "That is a Hindu 
of the goldsmiths' caste. I know him by the marks 
that are painted on his forehead. ' ' Of another he will say, 
"See that Parsi, with his black cap like a miter!" or, 
"There goes a Brahman; see his brass bowl! Among 
the Hindus he is a very holy man. If that goldsmith 
should touch his food, the Brahman would throw it 
away because he would consider it unclean. That 
naked low-caste man over there, with nothing but a 
cloth around his loins, dare not come within twenty 
feet of the holy man." 

Everywhere in India religion is extremely important. 
It regulates how a man shall eat and drink and sleep. It 
decides what his business shall be. For the system 
of caste compels a son to do exactly the same sort of 
work that his father, grandfather, and great-grand- 
father did before him. But strangely enough, religion 
has very little to do with the way a man acts, as to what 
is right and wrong. A Hindu believes that he can 
commit all sorts of sins and still be a very good man. 
He needs only to bathe in the Ganges River, or become 
a beggar and perhaps keep his arm stretched out stiff 



INDIA 



307 



for year after year, and all his sins will be forgiven. 
Two-thirds of all the people of India are Hindus, who 




Hindu temple at the sanctuary of Wai, Bombay 

worship idols and think that cows and oxen are holy. 
They are divided into hundreds of castes, among which 
the Brahmans are the most holy. We shall see more 
of the Hindus later. 

Mohammedans, Buddhists, and Animists. Among 
the people of India who are not Hindus about sixty 
million are Mohammedans, who pray with their faces 
toward Mecca and swear by the beard of Mohammed. 
The King of England, who is also the Emperor of India, 
has twice as many Mohammedan subjects as has the 
Sultan of Turkey. The remainder of the people of India 
profess various religions. Some are mild Buddhists like 
the Chinese and Burmese. Others, called Animists, 
are mere savages who believe that every rock, tree, river, 
and hill is the home of a spirit. If the spirits become 
angry, they are supposed to bring sickness or accident 



3o8 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

or death upon the people who wrong them. When a 
savage wants to dig a hole in the ground or to make 
a little clearing in the dense forest, he sets out a small 
bowl of rice or of palm wine for the spirits of the place. 
The poor ignorant man thinks that the supposed spirits 
are like men and that they will be so pleased with 
the offering that they will not object to having their 
homes disturbed. 

The Sikhs. One of the most interesting religions 
in India is that of the Sikhs — a strong, sturdy people 
from the foothills of the Himalayas. They revere the 
holy Brahman caste of the Hindus but do not wor-. 
ship idols. Their religious services are much like those 
of Protestants. They meet in temples which are free 
from images and pictures. There they sing hymns, 
pray, read from the "Granth" — their holy book, — and 
listen sometimes to preaching. The Sikhs are soldiers 
by profession and have been so for hundreds of years'. 
Many serve in the part of the British army which is 
composed of natives of India. Others become policemen 
and watchmen in all the British possessions from Hong- 
kong to Aden. They will do no other work, for although 
not Hindus they are bound by caste, and sons must 
follow the profession of their fathers. 

The Jains: Indian Art. The Jains, who have been 
called the Quakers of India, have a religion which 
resembles Hinduism, but is free from m_ost of tKe worst 
practices of that faith. Like all Hindus, the Jains 
believe that the souls of animals pass into men. There- 
fore, they will not kill any living creature, not even a 
fly or a mosquito. They actually have hospitals for 
animals. For instance at Ahmad ab ad, north of Bombay, 
their hospital contains eight hundred old or sick animals 
which are fed as long as they live. In the streets of 




308 



INDIA 309 

towns and in the country the Jains set up little bird 
houses on poles and place bird food in them daily, all 
as part of their religion. The Jains live in many parts 
of India but chiefly in Rajputana. They are largely 
merchants and they are often very rich. One of the 
things in which they deal is expensive cloth, some of 
which is made of silver and gold thread. An Indian 
jeweler, with only the clumsiest tools, can sit in his tiny 
box of a shop and, taking a silver dollar, draw it out so 
thin that it makes a mile of fine, soft thread. Some of 
the cloth made of gold and silver is worth a thousand 
or even five thousand dollars a yard. It is not worn by 
women, as one would expect, but by men, the native 
princes of India. The women in most parts of the 
country are kept in seclusion and are obliged to veil 
their faces in public. 

The Parsis. Though the Jains are good merchants, 
they are excelled by the Parsis of Bombay, who belong 
to quite a different race and religion. Parsi is the same 
word as Persian. Long ago the ancestors of the Parsis 
were so persecuted by the Mohammedans of Persia 
that they left their own country and came to India. 
They carefully brought with them the sacred fire which 
they worship. It is never allowed to go out. In the 
morning on the seashore at Bombay one often sees 
Parsis bowing down in worship to the rising sun, the 
source of all life, as they think. To them the earth is 
holy, so the bodies of the dead cannot be buried in it. 
Fire too is holy, so bodies cannot be burned, as is the 
custom of the Hindus. Therefore, in the famous white 
Towers of Silence at Bombay the Parsis expose the 
bodies of their dead in the open air for ugly birds called 
vultures to devour. Aside from the British, the Parsis 
are the most progressive people in India. Most of the 



3IO ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

races of India are immigrants who have come to the 
country at various times from the north or west. The 
latest who came as conquerors were the famous Moguls 
from central Asia, who founded a great kingdom and 
built wonderful palaces and mosques. Other races, 
like the Parsis, came as exiles; and the latest great 
invaders, the British, came as merchants. 

Causes of the Diversity of India. India is a land of 
contrasts. We have seen how the inhabitants of the 
country vary in race, language, and religion. They 
vary equally in habits. All the variations are due to 
two great causes. In the first place, unnumbered tribes 
and races have invaded India, bringing with them their 
own habits. In the second place, the mountains, plains, 
climate, plants, and animals of India vary greatly from 
place to place. Because of this, people are bound to live 
in very different ways in different parts of the country. 
Until the English introduced railroads, it was hard to 
travel from one part of India to another, harder even 
than in many other parts of Asia. There were rivers and 
mountains to cross, and jungles full of savage tigers and 
deadly snakes to be traversed. Each race was under its 
own government, which was very suspicious of strangers; 
and every Hindu traveler was much afraid that he 
would do something which would defile him and make 
him lose his caste. Naturally, then, the people of the 
various parts of India have had very little to do with 
one another and are very diverse. Let us see how great 
the contrasts are. 

The Contrast between Sind and Bengal. On the map 
of India it appears at first sight as if the provinces 
called Sind and Bengal ought to be much alike. Sind 
is a great plain lying in the west of India along the lower 
course of the Indus River, a little north of the Tropic of 



I 



INDIA 311 

Cancer. Bengal is a similar plain lying in the east of 
India along the lower courses of the Ganges and Brahma- 
putra rivers, partly north and partly south of the Tropic 
of Cancer. When we look closely at a large map, we 
begin to notice differences. Bengal is crisscrossed with 
railroads, while Sind has very few. Many lines of 
steamboats are marked as co"ming to Calcutta in Bengal, 
and only one or two as coming to Karachi in Sind. 
Calcutta, as everyone knows, is the capital of India and 
one of the largest cities in the world, while Karachi is a 
new city, the location of which is actually unknown to 
many intelligent people. Another noticeable fact is 
that on a large map the country of Bengal is covered 
with the names of towns and cities, while in Sind the 
names are few and unimportant. When we inquire, we 
are told that Bengal has about five hundred fifty 
inhabitants for every square mile, while Sind has only 
sixty-eight. Scores of books contain descriptions of 
Bengal and its clever, cowardly people, short, well- 
fed, and plump. Only a few have anything to say about 
the tall, warlike people of Sind. 

Description of Bengal. In Bengal the plain is broad 
and green. Fertile rice fields are fringed with an ever- 
green border of bamboo, and cocoanut, areca, and other 
palms. Here and there a single huge banyan, or sacred 
fig tree, looks like a small grove festooned with great 
creeping vines full of gorgeous flowers. The roads 
swarm with swarthy people, scantily dressed in dirty 
sheets of white cotton wound gracefully around their 
smooth bodies. Occasionally a wealthy landowner is 
seen riding pompously in a springless two-wheeled cart 
drawn by one horse. His head is covered by a snow- 
white turban banded with gold. Earrings of pearl and 
gold hang from his olive ears, and around his neck 



312 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

a chain of amethysts and emeralds rests on a robe of 
rose-colored satin. In contrast to this magnificence it is 
most surprising to see that his lower garment is a pair of 
cheap, frayed pajamas of white cotton; his legs below the 
knee are bare; and his feet are stuck into old carpet 
slippers. Such contrasts of beauty and shabbiness are 
common in India. 

At first sight one wonders where the people live, for 
not a farmhouse is in sight. It is evident that the 
population is dense, for moist, green rice fields stretch 
as far as the eye can see. In some fields the grain is tall 
and in others short, for there are many kinds of rice, and 
we are told that three hundred varieties are raised in the 
province. Soon the road approaches a clump of palms 
and bamboos, and as we draw near we see that the trees 
conceal a village. Little mud houses with conical roofs 
of thatch stand crowded close together, looking like 
beehives. Ponds, or "tanks," of green stagnant water 
fill hollows where mud has been dug up for the houses. 
The village itself stands on a little elevation, for in the 
rainy season the waters of the Ganges and Brahmaputra 
sometimes flood the country for miles and miles. Beside 
the quaint village flows a small branch of the river. It 
is covered with boats which sail up and down, carrying 
vegetables and grain for Calcutta and the other cities. 

Like bees the brown-skinned, cheerful people swarm in 
the village streets. In one part of the village people 
can be seen threshing rice by driving oxen around upon 
it. Others are throwing the broken, threshed straw up 
into the wind to winnow out the grain. Women in 
sheds are husking the rice by working a beam which 
rises and falls, pounding the kernels. In other sheds 
oxen are walking round and round, turning a stone mill 
which presses linseed oil from the seed of flax. Another 



,1 



INDIA 313 

mill, perhaps standing out of doors, is pressing out the 
juice of the sugar cane, which is put into large pans 
and boiled down to sugar. The people are very poor, 
but they seem happy and contented. Wherever one 
goes he finds the Bengalis, as the inhabitants are called, 
talking constantly; and their talk is ever of money and 
the price of rice and butter. 

Description of Sind. Far away on the other side of 
India, in Sind, the scene is very different. The hot air, 
heavy with dusty haze, shimmers over a plain of yellow 
sand. In many places great dunes rise to a height of 
from fifty to one hundred feet. Inch b}^ inch they are 
driven forward by strong winds from the west. The 
traveler by train shuts all the windows to keep out the 
dust. The traveler on horseback or by camel longs for 
the night, when the glare of the sun will give place to the 
beautiful evening tints of pink, yellow, and brown, and 
when he and his weary animals can rest in an oasis 
watered by the great Indus. 

There in the oasis all is life and activity. The tall 
men of Sind, in their voluminous headdresses, are 
busy watering fields of rice and wheat or thrifty orchards 
of figs and other luscious fruits. The roads are dusty and 
so are the trees, but there are many signs of prosperity. 
Yet, through it all one sees that the people are very poor. 
The majority have enough to eat and that is all. They 
talk of the famine which came last year and bless the 
English forJiaving built canals, which now bring abun- 
dant water to every man's fields. They wonder, too, how 
the Baluchis are getting on and whether they will be 
peaceable if the crops are bad. All the grown men 
remember the old days when they used to fight with 
plundering neighbors. They still have the spirit of 
soldiers, and one of them is worth half a dozen Bengalis 



314 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

in a time of danger, although the Bengali is vastly 
cleverer than they when it comes to talking or studying. 

The Monsoon Rains. The difference between Bengal 
and Sind is much greater than that between Florida and 
New Mexico. It is as great as that between Italy and the 
desert of northern Africa. In Sind the rainfall amounts 
to only about four inches in a year. How small this 
amount is may be judged from the fact that in a single 
month most parts of the eastern United States receive 
a greater quantity. Without irrigation the country 
is as dry and barren as the Sahara. With irrigation it 
becomes as fertile as Egypt. Bengal on the contrary 
is very rainy. In India, as in Eastern Asia, the rain de- 
pends almost wholly on the monsoon winds which blow 
from the northeast in winter and from the southwest in 
summer. The northeast winds blow across the Bay of 
Bengal and, rising gently over the low irregular range of 
the Eastern Ghats, shed rain in the eastern part of the 
Indian Peninsula and in Ceylon in winter. The remainder 
of the country is then quite dry, although a little rain 
falls in Bengal and it storms occasionally in the north. 

In summer when the winds blow from the southwest, 
almost all parts of India receive some rain. On the 
western shore, from Bombay southward, the Western 
Ghats cause the air to rise so rapidly that very heavy 
rains fall. A little farther east, beyond the crest of the 
Ghats, the rainfall is much less. In ordinary years, how- 
ever, it is enough for crops. In the southern, part of the 
peninsula, in the neighborhood of Madras and Mysore, 
rain falls more or less at all times of the year, since both 
monsoons come from the ocean. North of Bombay on 
the west coast the rainfall diminishes, because the south- 
west winds are less regular and because the height of 
the mountains diminishes. In Sind the country is so low 



INDIA 315 

and flat that the air of the monsoons is scarcely obliged 
to rise at all in passing over it. As the land is usually 
warmer than the ocean, there is nothing to cool the air. 
Hence almost no rain falls in Sind. Where there are 
mountains, for example the Aravalli Hills to the east 
and the Vindhya Range to the southeast, there is enough 
rain to make it possible to raise crops without irriga- 
tion. Farther north in the Punjab and in all the region 
from the upper Indus to Bengal, the Indo-Gangetic 
Plain lies at the base of the Himalayas. It therefore 
receives a fairly large rainfall, which makes it possible 
for northern India to support a vast population. In 
Bengal the rains are still heavier than in the region to the 
northwest, because the eastern Himalayas are not far 
from the sea. 

Assam, in the valley of the Brahmaputra at the base of 
the Himalayas northeast of Bengal, is the rainiest place 
in the world. In a single year nearly 500 inches of rain 
often falls. That is, if none of the rain ran off from the 
place where it fell and none were lost by evaporation, 
the water would be more than forty feet deep at the end 
of the year. In a single day forty or fifty inches have been 
known to fall. In other words this part of Assam some- 
times receives as much rain in one day as the eastern 
United States receives in a year. The drier parts of the 
United States, such as Arizona, do not receive as much 
rain in five years as Assam does in twenty-four hours. 
Naturally, Assam abounds in great streams, that land 
possessing large rivers where we possess mere creeks. 
Because of the heavy downpour of water the soil is 
washed away completely from all parts of the mountains 
where the slope is at all steep, and nothing but bare rock 
remains. Elsewhere the forest grows most luxuriantly. 
Those who have been in this region in the rainy season 



3i6 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

say that the climate is not so disagreeable as might be 
expected, for the mornings are generally sunny, so that 
clothes and houses have a chance to dry. 

The moisture of the southern part of Bengal, around 
Calcutta, is much more trying than that of Assam. 
There, the air is hot and muggy all the time in sum^mer. 
Clothes that are put in a closet mold in two or three 
days. Foreigners who stay through the summer have 
special servants who take out all the clothes every day 
and air them. Otherwise everything would be spoiled. 
In winter Calcutta is decidedly warm, but the tempera- 
ture is no higher than that which prevails in most parts 
of America in summer. In summer Calcutta is not 
much warmer than in winter, but the climate is so 
damp as to be almost unendurable. There, and in most 
parts of India except the mountains and the far north, 
Europeans are quite sure to grow ill if they remain 
year after year. English children, after they are five or 
six years old, have to be sent home to England, or else 
they grow pale and thin. 

The Three Great Divisions of India. Sind and Bengal 
do not represent the greatest contrast that may be found 
in India. These two regions differ primarily in climate 
alone, although this of course gives rise to other differ- 
ences. Other places differ not only in climate but in 
the height of the land above the sea, the extent to which 
it has been cut up into mountains and valleys, the 
distance from the sea, the nature of the soil and 
minerals, and the presence or absence of easy routes of 
travel. 

India is naturally divided into three main divisions. 
On the north lie the great mountains extending north- 
eastward from southern Baluchistan to the Pamirs and 
then southeastward along the line of the Himalayas 



INDIA 



317 



to the Burmese ranges. This vast barrier protects 
India from invasion by the people of the east and 




Traveling in the Deccan 

north and from the cold winds of central Asia. It also 
furnishes life to the country at its base. 

Without the mountains the second great division of 
the country would be almost waterless. From the 
mouth of the Indus, in Sind, a vast plain of the finest, 
most fertile soil extends up the Indus to the great prov- 
ince of the Punjab, or "land of the five rivers." It 
then follov/s the Ganges down through the rich and 
enormously populous provinces of Agra and Oudh to 
Bengal and Assam. In these great plains — the second 
main division of India — live twice as many people as in 
the United States. Except the plains of China no other 
large area of the earth's surface can compare with 
them in density of population. 

The great peninsula extending from the Aravalli 
Hills and Vindhya Range southward to Ceylon is 



3i8 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

the third great division, and comprises the rest of India. 
In the north it consists of low mountains; in the center, 
of the low plateau known as the Deccan; and again 
in the south, of mountains. It contains a population 
as great as that of the United States, but the people 
have not much energy, and have done very little to 
make themselves important in the world. 

The Himalayas. It is hard to realize the beauty and 
majesty of the Himalayas. At their foot lies a val- 
ley, the Terai, so warnj and damp and low that it is 
almost uninhabitable. Dense jungles of bamboo and 
all manner of tropical trees form the haunt of strange 
beasts and birds and of a few poor ignorant savages. 
Yet even for the hunter the Terai is not a good place. It 
is too full of mosquitoes and other stinging creatures, 
and its climate is such that fevers are prevalent. 
Snakes are very numerous, and the danger of death 
is always present. As long as the mountains pour 
down their floods and the tropical sun beats hot, the 
Terai can scarcely become the home of civilized man. 

Beyond th& Terai the mountains begin to rise. At first 
they are covered with tropical trees. Monkeys swing 
in' the tree tops, and white ants eat houses and every 
other sort of dead wood. A little higher the scenery 
changes. The plants of the Temperate Zone begin to 
make their appearance, and tea plantations cover the 
fair slopes. The European begins to revive in the fresh 
air, which feels to him far better than the coolest evening 
breeze feels to us after a hot day. Higher yet, ever- 
greens, like the pine and cedar, cover the slopes, and the 
deodar with cones like brown Christmas candles appears. 
Here at last is a country in which the white man can 
live. There is not much of it, however. Quickly the 
mountains tower higher,; bare rocks replace forests; and 



INDIA 



319 



high above the rugged slopes cold mountain peaks gleam 
with snow which never melts. Even in summer the ther- 
mometer goes down to zero on the higher ranges. Here 
stands Everest, the highest of mountains, great Kanchan- 
janga, and a score of others more than five miles high. 

Traveling in these mountains is not an easy matter. 
No horse can climb to the lofty passes through the 
deep snow. Yaks, perhaps, can be used — great, clumsy- 
looking beasts like oxen, with long shaggy hair coming 
down to their knees. Slowly and carefully they feel 
among the stones, or in the snow on the steep slopes, to 
find a foothold for their long, double-pointed -hoofs; then, 
having placed their feet, they clamber upward, never hur- 
rying and always safe. As they climb, they grunt like 
huge pigs and grind their teeth most unpleasantly. 








y '5^' 






A valley among the high steep slopes of the Himalayas 



320 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



Some of the passes are too difficult even for yaks; 
only men can climb them. The traveler must hire 




Transportation in the Himcilayas 

coolies who put loads of food, beds, tents, and every- 
thing that will be needed for weeks, upon their backs. 
Each man is supposed to carry sixty pounds, which is 
no easy matter. In the high mountains far above the 
clouds one's heart beats like the blows of a hammer, 
shaking the whole body. A walk of a hundred yards 
up a very gentle slope makes one feel as if he had run a 
hard race. Every few minutes the climber must sit 
down for a rest. Often the rarity of the air is such that 
the pressure of the blood in the body bursts some thin 
membrane, and people bleed at the ears and nose. 

As the mountaineer wends his way over the snow on 
a sunny day after a storm, a roar like distant thunder 
strikes his ear. It grows louder, the coolies point 
upward and, throwing off their loads, begin to run. Far 
up on the side of a glistening white peak something 



INDIA 321 

is moving. It is an avalanche which every second grows 
in size. It is coming straight for the path where the 
caravan stands. The only thing to do is to run to one 
side where, perhaps, it will be possible to escape from 
being buried fifty feet deep under the rushing snow. 
The coolies and the travelers save themselves, but all 
the loads are lost, and it is necessary to go back and 
begin again. 

One of the finest things in the Himalayas is the huge 
glaciers from five to thirty miles long. Like great white 
tongues they wind down the valleys, carrying with them 
thousands of tons of rock and gravel torn from the 
bottoms of the valleys and the sides of the mountains. 
From a distance they look smooth and soft. Close at 
hand they are seen to be broken into huge cracks large 
enough to engulf a hundred men. At the end of each 
glacier acres and acres are covered by a moraine, a 
great jumble of rocks of all shapes and sizes brought 
down by the ice. From each moraine a milky river 
springs forth, full fledged, from the melting snow of the 
glacier. The hotter the sun, the faster the ice and 
snow melt upon the mountains, and the larger the rivers. 
It is easy now to see the origin of the floods which 
descend to the plains and form the great rivers. India 
may well be grateful to the mountains which give rise 
to such rivers, for the water brings life to millions of 
acres of good land. 

M^nasarowar, the Sacred Lake. North of the great 
Himalayas a slight descent brings the traveler to the 
lofty plateau of Tibet. Here lies the sacred lake of 
Manasarowar, three miles above the sea. Every year 
hundreds of Hindu pilgrims laboriously cross the snowy 
passes to worship at this sacred spot. In their thin cot- 
ton garments they shiver and shake with cold. They are 



322 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

lean, slender men well fitted to live in a hot country, but 
not in one like Tibet. They suffer terribly in places 
where the plump, fat Tibetans would be perfectly 
warm and comfortable. Yet in spite of the cold they 
bathe in the chill waters of the sacred lake, for such 
is the command of their unsatisfying religion. 

The Debt of India to the Himalayas. It almost seems 
as if the pilgrims realized that the great mountains and 
the rivers which center there furnish life to India. Near 
Lake Manasarowar four great rivers take their rise and 
cross the Himalayas into India. The Indus and its 
chief tributary, the Sutlej, flow to the west and south- 
west. The Brahmaputra and the Gogra, the principal 
tributaries of the Ganges, flow to the east and southeast. 
These streams and others from the southern side of the 
Himalayas have built up the entire great plain of north- 
ern India. They have carried away the rocks of the 
mountains and have deposited them in the form of 
the finest, richest soil, making a plain where one can 
travel two thousand miles, from the mouth of the Indus 
up to the Punjab and then down to the mouth of the 
Ganges, without being able to fi.nd a single pebble. 
Without the mountains there would be no plain of 
northern India. And without the rain and rivers, to 
which the mountains give rise, most of the plain would 
be a desert like Sind. In our thought of India the 
rugged snow-capped mountains with their clouds, rains, 
snows, and glaciers must always be connected with the 
smooth, warm plains with their abundant trees and 
plants and their swarms of dusky, busy, superstitious 
people. 

The Indo-Gangetic Plain. We have seen something 
of the two ends of the Indo-Gangetic Plain: Sind, 
too dry and sterile to foster civilization, and Bengal, too 



i 



INDIA 



3^3 



damp and muggy. Between the two and a little farther 
north lies the best part of India: the provinces of the 
Punjab, Agra, and Oudh. Here the great Indian nations 
of the past have had their centers, and here the civiliza- 
tion, industry, and wealth of the country center to-day. 
From the low banks of the rivers the plains slope gently 
away, dotted with villages and adorned with noble trees. 
The houses of each village cluster thickly, and the brown 
masses of flat-roofed mud buildings look cool and clean 
in the purple shadows of the trees. Stretching from 
village to village across the length of the land runs the 
great white highway of the Sircar — the Road of the 
Viceroy, the people call it. Its long avenues of trees give 



mi 


'"S^- 




1-*"^ 




n 






"^.\^^ 


iipf-** 





Bullock carts and their drivers in the Indo-Gangeiic Plain 

welcome shade to creaking bullock carts and to the 
white-robed, dust-covered figures of passing wayfarers. 
Beyond the road and the villages the fields of the peas- 
ants stretch away to the level horizon. In the winter, 
which is cool and bracing but not cold, they are green 
with wheat and mustard. In the spring and early sum- 
mer, when nature is at its best with us, they stretch away 



324 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



bare and brown under the yellow haze of a cloudless sky. 
Day after day the merciless sun scorches the land witH 
an intensity unknown in more northern countries, and 
all things long for rain. Then in June the southwest 
monsoons' begin to blow and the rains come ; the air 
grows cooler and damper, and the fields grow beautiful 
with crops of millet, sugar cane, corn, and poppies. 

Famines. As the villagers gather to gossip under the 
trees in the cool of the evening, their talk, like that of the 
Bengahs, is of the prices of food in the nearest bazaar. 
vSome sit on the steps around a sacred tank of dirty, 
greenish water in front of the Hindu temple. Others 
squat around the ugly figure of the kind god, Ganesa, 
daubed with vermilion paint. Their prayer is ever for 
rain. If the rains come at the right time and in the 




Indian children rescued from famine, southern India 



INDIA 325 

necessary quantities, they are safe. If not, millions may 
die. India, even more than China, is a land of famine. 

In the old days the people used to die in hundreds 
whenever the rainfall was scanty. Those who did not 
die of hunger perished of pestilence and plague. Many 
wandered away to other parts of the country and gave 
themselves up to a life of stealing. Probably in this way 
certain small castes were formed whose business it is to 
steal. During the rainy season when the crops must be 
raised, they work peaceably at home. In the dry season 
they wander to far parts of the country on business, as 
they would call it. They do not think it wrong to steal. 
It is part of their religious duty. Their fathers did 
it, and they must do it or else be put out of their caste. 

Railroads. During the last hundred years of English 
rule in India the ravages of famine have become much 
less than formerly. The government has many times 
fed hundreds of thousands of people who had not a morsel 
of bread of their own. It has given work to other hun- 
dreds of thousands. It has built railroads, so that food 
can be brought from one part of the country to another. 

We scarcely realize how much we depend upon rail- 
roads. Suppose all the railroads leading to New York 
should be destroyed. Soon the people of the great city 
would begin to find it hard to get food. The price of 
everything would go up. A loaf of bread that had been 
five cents would be ten, then fifteen, and at last twenty, 
thirty, and fifty. Poor people would very soon not be 
able to buy enough to feed themselves and their famihes. 
The weaker children would grow sick, and finally 
hundreds and thousands of people would die. 

In the old days India was like this. There might be 
more than enough food in Bengal, while in Agra whole 
villages would die of hunger because there was no way 



326 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

of carrying the food to them. Now all this has been 
changed by the building of railroads by the English. 

Irrigation. A still more important thing which the 
EngUsh have done is to build great canals to carry the 
water of the rivers to the fields. In regions watered by 
the canals the farmers no longer depend entirely on the 
rain. If the rain is late or scanty, they simply turn on 
some water from a canal and plant the seed, knowing 
that the crop will be good. vSome of the canals are great 
rivers a hundred yards wide. vSome times they are car- 
ried over other streams and sometimes under. In the 
Punjab great tracts which were formerly scrubby waste 
land, too dry for anything but pasture, now form some 
of the richest farms in the country. 

When the Chenab Canal was built, its water was carried 
to a region of this kind where nobody lived. British 
officials laid out towns and farms. They decided on sites 
for post offices, stores, roads, railroads, and everything 
which a community would need. Then when all was 
ready, the water was turned into the canals, and the whole 
river was carried to the new country. Poor people who 
had stiffered from famine and distress in other places were 
allowed to buy the land very cheaply. In ten or twelve 
years a million people, had settled on land which once 
was a desert. It was as if the state of Connecticut were 
all a desert with nobody living in it, and the government 
should spread the water of the Connecticut River over a 
large part of the state, and the whole state should be 
settled in a dozen years. 

In spite of all that the English have done to improve 
conditions, famines still occur. People who are thrifty 
need not suffer from them now, but the unthrifty have 
nothing laid by to use in buying food when their crops 
are poor and prices are high. There are millions of such 



INDIA 327 

people in India, and they will always suffer when the 
rains fail, for irrigation is not possible everywhere. 

The people of India have gladly adopted some new 
things, such as railroads and irrigation canals which help 
to prevent famines, but they prefer to do most things in 
the old way. Many missionaries have tried to convert 
the Hindus and the people of other religions, but only a 
few hundred thousand have yet changed their faith. 
The remainder of the people, to the number of three 
hundred million, still believe in the old gods. 

The Brahmans. The European traveler on the rail- 
road is likely to be in a first-class car with windows well 
curtained to keep out the sun, berths in which to sleep, 
and a bathroom where he can frequently bathe or get a 
drink of ice water. The poor native travels in a third- 
class car, where people are crowded together like sheep 
in a pen. Even when the natives are not compelled to 
be so crowded, they seem to like it. 

At almost every station scores of people come out of 
the cars for a drink of water. On the platform stand 
ragged, dirty men carrying sheepskin bags of water on 
their backs and brass bowls wrapped in the girdles 
around their waists. The thirsty crowd swarms around 
them, but does not touch them. To one man the water 
carrier hands a little bowl of water. The next does not 
seem to expect a bowl. He holds his hands together like 
a cup, close to his face, and the water carrier pours water 
into them, while the thirsty passenger eagerly drinks. It 
seems a queer way to do, until one understands the 
caste system of the Hindus. The water carrier is a Brah- 
man, a member of the highest of all castes. The man 
to whom he gave a bowl is also a Brahman ; the other is 
a member of a lower caste, whose touch would defile 
the Brahman's bowl and oblige him to throw it away. 



328 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

Brahmans cannot eat food which persons of a lower caste 
have touched or drink water from a well or dish which 
has been used by other castes. 

A Brahman may be the most dirty, wretched, and 
wicked of men, but he is holy, and all men revere him 
and give him presents and ask him to pray for them — 
simply because his ancestors happen to have belonged 
to what was once the caste of priests. If a Brahman 
eats and drinks w4th people of a lower caste, he is 
supposed to be defiled. He loses his holy character and 
becomes an outcast. Thenceforth, unless he has plenty 
of money to buy forgiveness, he is not a member of any 
caste and is despised and illtreated by everyone. 

Caste. Every Hindu belongs to one particular caste, 
with its own customs and its own particular occupation. 
A man can always take food from a person of a higher 
caste, but not from one of a lower. All persons must 
marry within their own caste. The grocers form one 
caste, the druggists another, the shoemakers a third, and 
soon. If Mr. Grocer travels, he takes food with him; 
for he may be obliged to go to a village of tanners, whom 
he would consider unclean. He could not stay in the 
village long, for he would be almost sure to defile himself 
in some way. Of course if there were a Brahman there, 
he might get the holy man to cook for him, and this 
would enable him to escape pollution. If Mr. Grocer's 
son wants to become a dry -goods clerk, all his friends 
and neighbors hold up their hands in horror, and say: 
"The young man is an infidel. The gods will punish 
those who act so wickedly!" 

Marriage. If the young man settles down and 
becomes a good grocer, we might think that he would 
have trouble again because he would want to marry the 
druggist's pretty daughter. Not a bit of it. When he 



INDIA 



6^9 



was ten years old, he was betrothed by his parents to 
another grocer's little girl of six. They were married 
when she was 
twelve and he was 
sixteen. Since then 
she has led a stupid 
life of hard work. 
She does not mind 
the washing and 
cooking and sewing 
and the care of the 
children. The hard 
part of life for a 
Hindu woman is 
that she is always 
shut up and can 
never go around 
freely as men do. 
Her ears are hung 
with heavy ear- 
rings. There is a ^ native doctor and his daughter 
great silver button fastened into the left side of her 
brown nose, and her bare round arms and legs are loaded 
with beautiful rings of gold and silver, delicately carved 
and set with precious stones. Around her waist is a 
broad girdle of silver hung with coins and bangles. As 
she walks her load of jewelry tinkles musically. Her 
husband must be very fond of her to give her all those 
expensive ornaments, one thinks. Perhaps he is fond 
of her, but that is not why he bought the ornaments. 
He has done well in business and has some money 
to invest. There are no native savings banks in India 
and few good places to invest money. The best thing 
to do with his savings, he thinks, is to buy jewelry; 




330 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

and the safest place to keep the jewelry is on his wife or 
himself. Sometimes one sees a coolie laborer wearing 
nothing but a little loin cloth and a splendid silver girdle 
encircling his naked body. He has saved something for 
the day of famine. 

Oftentimes girls in India are given in marriage when 
they are scarcely more than babies. Their husbands 
may be many, many years older than they, and may die 
before the child wives grow up. Such little widows have 
the saddest lives that can be imagined. According to 
Hindu law they cannot be married again. If they stay 
in the houses of their dead husbands, every one abuses 
them. They cannot go out and earn a living by teach- 
ing school or working in a store or office or factory. 
Women do not do those things in India, except in a few 
large cities like Cawnpur and Bombay, where large fac- 
tories have lately been established. So hundreds of 
thousands of them lead lives of utter misery. It is not 
good to be a girl in India. 

Religious Festivals: The Rites of Hinduism. The 
happiest times for Hindus, and especially for the women, 
are the great religious festivals. Every year hundreds 
of thousands of men and women make pilgrimages to 
Benares or some other sacred place. At Benares a great 
city is almost entirely given up to temples and pilgrims. 
The most important temples are along the banks of the 
Ganges. In one temple stands the ugly figure of the 
monkey god, and in the trees round about hundreds of 
grinning monkeys quarrel and scold or drop down to 
snatch some good thing from the worshiper's hands. 

In the market place piles of fruit and vegetables are 
spread out for sale. Among the crowds of eager pilgrims a 
great bull is seen walking quietly along till he comes to 
some fresh cabbages and stops to take a few bites . No one 



INDIA 331 

seems to pay any attention to him. Although the shop- 
keeper certainly sees him, he makes no attempt to drive 



A Hindu temple 

him away. Soon the bull goes on to another shop and 
eats a little rice. Then another bull is seen with his 
nose in a basket of figs. The bulls are holy animals. 
Their homes are in the temples where the Hindus worship 
them. The shopkeeper whose figs were eaten feels grate- 
ful because he has won credit for himself in heaven, so 
he believes, by giving something to the holy animal in 
which is the spirit of some saint. Everywhere among 
Hindus oxen and cows are revered. The milk of cows 
is used, but the flesh is never eaten and the animals 
are never killed. This is partly because cattle are so 
very necessary to plow the fields, and there is not room 
to keep many of them where there are so many people. 
It is also partly because in a warm country like India 
people do not feel the need of meat. Usually they 
prefer millet, rice, wheat, vegetables, and fruit with 
sugar and oil. 



332 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

Along the Ganges River at Benares strange sights are 
seen. On either side broad flights of steps lead from the 
water's edge to tawdry temples topped with silver 
domes. In one place sits a man with his body smeared 
with oil and ashes. His left hand is raised to the back 
of his head, and he never moves it. For years he has 
kept it in that one position, until now he could not move 
it if he would. By his side is a little brass bowl into 
which a pilgrim now and then drops a little coin. The 
man is a Brahman fakir, who pretends to be very holy 
and who really believes that the gods are pleased to 
have him spend his life in doing nothing but beg. 

Near at hand squats a fakir of another kind, a con- 
jurer. From the scanty rags which cover his nakedness 
he pulls out a snake of the most poisonous kind and 
wraps it around his neck. We think that its fangs have 
been removed, but that is not true. It could kill a man 
if it wished, but the fakir somehow knows how to keep it 
quiet. Putting the snake into a covered basket, he 
proceeds to astonish a crowd of pilgrims. In his hand 
he takes a seed and plants it in the ground. In a few 
minutes a little shoot appears; then a green leaf unrolls. 
The plant grows before our eyes, inch by inch. Soon it 
is a little tree, and on it appears a blossom, and at last 
a fruit which the fakir takes off and hands to a pilgrim. 
It is a fig. How. the fakir works his tricks no one knows. 
People have tried again and again to find out the secrets 
of the Hindu jugglers, but without success. Perhaps 
the fakir merely causes people to think that they see the 
things which he wants them to see. 

Brahmans and fakirs are not the only interesting 
people on the river bank. Here come half a dozen men, 
stumbling hastily along with an old man in their arms. 
He is evidently very sick, for he groans piteously. It 



INDIA 333 

hurts him to be carried, and yet he urges his bearers 
to hasten. They carry him to the water's edge and lay 
him down with his feet in the stream. As his feet 
touch the water, a happy look comes over his face. He is 
dying, and, like all Hindus, he believes that if he can 
die with his feet in the sacred waters of the Ganges his 
soul will secure millions of years of happiness. 

Near him the body of a man who died far away is being 
washed in the sacred river. He could not come to die by 
the riverside, but his friends have brought his body. 
When it is washed, it is wrapped in a white cloth and 
carried to a pile of wood, on the top of which it is care- 
fully placed. A group of Brahmans stand around and 
recite prayers. One brings a torch and sets fire to the 
pile, which bums until the body is consumed. Then the 
ashes are thrown into the river, and a new pile of wood 
is prepared for the next body. The Hindus have the 
sensible practice of burning the bodies of the dead. 
They do many things which are very unsanitary, but 
this particular custom is wise. 

The thing that impresses one most in Benares is the 
great throng of bathers. Crowds of men in one place 
and of women in another, not far off, stand in the water 
daily. They throw it over their shoulders and drink it 
till they can drink no more. Bottles are filled with the 
holy fluid to be carried far away to bring blessings to 
friends at home. No one cares if a dead body is being 
washed just above him or if cattle are wallowing in the 
dirty, muddy stream. It is the Ganges, and to every 
true Hindu the water of the Ganges is precious, no matter 
how dirty it may be. 

Mohammedan Buildings: The Taj Mahal. The Mo- 
hammedans, unlike the Hindus, possess few holy places 
in India. Certain cities, however, such as Delhi and 



334 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



Agra, fill them with the utmost pride. Three or four 
hundred years ago India was conquered and ruled by- 
some Mohammedan emperors called the Moguls, a race 
of Tartars from Turkistan, who came down through 
Afghanistan. They built some of the most splendid 
palaces and mosques in the world. Best of all their 
works is the Taj Mahal at Agra. The emperor. Shah 
Jehan, grieving greatly over the death of his wife, Arj- 
mand Banu Begam, decided to build for her a tomb more 
beautiful than any ever before seen. From various parts 
of Asia and even from Europe he procured artists. For 
twenty-two years, so it is said, he kept twenty thousand 
men at work without pay on his wife's memorial. For 
the materials he paid the huge sum of twenty million 
dollars. No tomb ever cost so much, and none was ever 
so well worth building. There it stands to-day in the 




Tlie Taj Mahal at Agra 



INDIA 335 

midst of beautiful gardens. It is not a tomb in the 
ordinary sense of the word, but a large domed building, 
two hundred fifty feet high, with slender spires on each 
of the four corners. 

From top to bottom it is made of pure white mar- 
ble; not a particle of iron or wood is used, nothing 
but mortar and stone. Everywhere the marble is inlaid 
with precious stones in the form of flowers, leaves, 
and branches. Here is a purple flower like an aster, 
there a red rose or a delicate green leaf. Each is 
fashioned with infinite care,' so that every little petal 
and even the stamens are carefully worked out in bits 
of inlaid stone of the right shade or color. On 
the outside the figures are large and comparatively 
coarse, so that they appear well from a distance. On 
the inside they are smaller. 

The most delicate work has been bestowed upon two 
sarcophagi, or caskets of white marble, which are 
supposed to contain the bodies of Shah Jehan and 
his wife. They stand within a wonderful screen of 
the purest white stone. The blending of delicate 
colors in the hard, cold stone of the sarcophagi seems to 
be the very perfection of human work= 

Yet it is not they, nor the beautiful marble screen, which 
most impresses the visitor. The chief wondqr of the Taj 
Mahal is the stately white building itself. It cannot be 
described. No one who has seen it can ever forget the 
graceful beauty of its fair white walls and perfectly pro- 
portioned domes. 

The Indian Peninsula : R^jputdna. South of the great 
plains the low mountains of the peninsula of India 
begin. Half among the low Aravalli Hills and half in the 
desert plain north of Sind lies Rajputana. It is a dry 
land where a slight failure of the monsoon rains brings 



$$6 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

famine. Yet the people are prosperous. The air is 
clear and sweet and invigorating. The heat of summer 
is great but is not enervating like that of Bengal, 
and the winters are fairly cool. The climate is like that 
of Palestine or of the best parts of Arabia. In such a 
land, as might be expected, the inhabitants are vigorous 
and progressive compared with those of many other parts 
of the country. No race in India has more reason to be 
proud than have the Rajputs, as the ruling race of 
Rajputana is called. Next to the Brahmans they are 
the highest caste in India. They take great pride in 
boasting that they are descended from the sun, while 
the Brahmans are descended from the^moon. 

One of the characteristic cities of Rajputana is Jaipur, 
a spot of verdant cultivation set in the midst of sandy 
wastes and barren hills. Not far away lies the salt lake 
of Sambhar, white-edged with salt efflorescence and 
rose-tinted with pink crystals. Around its shores 
sweeping lines of pink and white flamingos move in 
ordered companies against the clear blue sky. Pink 
is a favorite color. In the city of Jaipur, itself, the 
houses are "pink-washed" instead of being "white- 
washed," because the materials used for making the 
wash contain something pink. The houses are very 
pretty from a distance, but close at hand they are taw- 
dry. Each has its little portico, and the broad, sunny 
streets are lined with shady arcades. Everything is 
gaudy in Jaipur. The pink walls of the houses are 
often painted with animals in bright colors and the 
people, those who do not go half -naked, wear gowns of 
brilliant red, yellow, or green. In the streets the creak- 
ing bullock carts are gaily painted; camels and horses 
have bright trappings; and the trunks and foreheads of 
elephants are often painted in colored patterns. In a 



INDIA 



337 



moist land like Bengal such decorations would soon be 

spoiled, but in dry Rajputana they long remain brilliant. 

Bombay. After 



Calcutta Bombay is 
the greatest city of 
India. The foreigner 
finds it most interest- 
ing, with its splendid 
harbor , its great trade , 
its many races, and its 
strange sights. It is 
here the majority of 
foreigners first enter 
India, and in its 
streets they can see 
examples of many of 
the most remarkable 
things in the country. 
Along the shore a 
magnificent boulevard 
leads past the splen- 
did buildings which the British have erected during 
the last fifty or sixty years. Elsewhere sacred bulls are 
wreathed with flowers by girls devoted to the service 
of the gods. On the island of Elephanta, a few miles 
from the city, ancient temples and statues carved in the 
solid rock show that long ago the people of India were 
highly accomplished. 

Madras and the Far South. Farther south, on the east 
coast, the city of Madras spreads itself abroad like a 
series of large villages. Here is the land of palm trees. 
Here, too, the people seem really to belong to the Hot 
Belt. Most of them are Telugus and Tamils, dark, 
graceful people, dressed in bright cotton sheets thrown 




Buddhist cave temples that have 
been carved in rock 



338 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

carelessly over the shoulder and around the body. They 
belong to races which lived in India ages before the 
Rajputs and the Brahmans came to the country. Large 
ruins show that at some time the people of southern 
India had more energy than they now have. Yet even 
here some places are quite progressive; for instance, 
Mysore with its gold mines and its great electrical 
works at the falls of the Cauvery River. 

The Aborigines. The peninsula of India contains 
many regions where the people are still savages. When 
one race after another came into the country from the 
north, the tribes that were conquered retired into the 
mountains. To-day their descendants still live there, 
knowing nothing of the changes that have taken place 
in the world. Around them on all sides lies dense jungle, 
through which it is hard to pass. The white man who 
tries to come among them is stricken with fever. So 
these primitive races live on in their mountain homes, 
hunting wild animals with bows and arrows and spears. 
They make offerings to the spirits of the woods, and 
burn little patches of jungle in order to plant millet and 
sugar cane for a few years until new jungle springs up 

Wild Animals. Here, as in Siam, the natives are 
much afraid of wild animals, especially tigers. When a 
tiger is young and its claws are sharp and its legs are 
strong for running, it usually runs away from men; for 
it can catch less dangerous prey. When it grows old, 
however, and finds it harder to catch the swift, wild 
animals of the jungle, it begins to catch men, who do 
not run away so fast. Commonly, tigers do not attack 
grown men unless they are asleep. The crafty animals 
are far more likely to catch children. When a tiger 
once begins to eat human beings, he seems to grow fond 
of them and hangs around a village, killing person after 



INDIA 339 

person. One tiger is known to have killed one hundred 
four people in three years, and another, in a somewhat 
longer time, killed more than one hundred twenty-five. 
Usually the Hindu villagers do not kill wild animals, 
but they are glad enough to have a foreigner, with a 
good gun, come and shoot a man-eating tiger. 

Snakes. Tigers are bad , but not nearly so bad as snakes , 
and no country has so many snakes as India. Some are 
small and harmless. Others, such as the hooded cobra, 
are deadly although small; and still others, like the 
python, are sometimes twenty-five feet long. Every 
year about twenty-five thousand people and one hundred 
thousand cattle are killed by snakes and wild animals, 
and of these about seven-eighths are killed by snakes. 
The government pays a dollar for every snake's skin 
that is brought in and five dollars for every tiger that 
is killed. Yet in spite of this, the people are slow to 
kill snakes. If a man is bitten by a snake and dies, 
his friends build a little shrine for him, and say that the 
gods were especially fond of that man and so sent a 
snake to kill him. It seems a queer way to account for 
it, but it is the way the Hindus have done for a thousand 
years, and therefore it seems to them sensible 

British Rule in India. Perhaps the strangest of all 
the strange things about India is the fact that it is ruled 
by England. Think of what it means. The people of 
the United Kingdom, including England, Scotland, and 
Ireland, number only about forty million. The people 
of India number seven or eight times as many, and yet 
they let the British rule them. In all India there are 
less than one hundred thousand English, or scarcely 
one Englishman for three thousand natives. Of the 
one hundred thousand English, only twelve hundred 
are government officials. These few Englishmen — one 



340 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

only for every two hundred fifty thousand natives — 
rule the whole country; and the great majority of the 
people are contented to have them rule. To be sure, 
the English have allowed part of the work of the 
government to be carried on by natives of India, and 
some of the more enlightened Indians are vigorously 
demanding more power for themselves. Nevertheless, 
the English are still the real governors of the land. 
Suppose Japan were to rule all Europe. Suppose [that 
she had an army of only sixty thousand Japanese, 
stationed mostly in Austria and the Balkan States. 
Besides this, let her have about one hundred forty 
thousand troops enlisted from among English, Germans, 
and Swiss and commanded by Japanese officers. That 
would make an army about one-third as large as that 
which Germany alone now has. How long could Japan 
rule Europe under such conditions? Yet, under pre- 
cisely similar conditions, England has ruled India for 
more than a century. 

The reason for this strange state of affairs is found in 
the geography of India and in the nature of the 
Indian and of the English people. As we have seen, 
India is not a single country. It is divided into a large 
number of countries inhabited by a great mixture of 
races. No native leader could ever make all these 
diverse peoples follow him. If England went away, 
the different races would soon begin to fight with one 
another. They do not know how to rule themselves. 
Some day, perhaps, they will learn; but that day seems 
to be far away. 

Besides the divided character of India-, another thing 
which makes it possible for the English to rule the 
country is the submissive character of the people. A 
large part of the farming classes, who compose 



INDIA 341 

most of the population of India, do not care who rules 
them. They object if they are heavily taxed or are 
treated unjustly, but aside from that they have no 
thought of their rulers. India is so warm that the 
people have not much energy for matters outside their 
little round of daily work. They are satisfied if they can 
raise food enough to have a comfortable living, and 
can save a little to ward off ■ famine or to pay the 
expenses of their daughters' weddings. 

x^nother reason why English rule continues in India 
is that the native people of India believe that the Eng- 
lish are absolutely honest. A merchant in India said to 
a traveler: "I have known you three days. I do not 
know much about your life, but if I had to trust all my 
property to some one, I would rather trust it to you than 
to my own brother. With us it is not the habit to be 
honest. You are an Englishman, and it is the habit of 
the English to be honest." It is English honesty and 
justice, most of all, which preserve the dominion of Eng- 
land in India. The people know that the English mean 
to do right. They also know that if their own people 
ruled them they would be oppressed far more than is 
now the case. 

The work of England in India is not easy. For the 
sake of keeping her dominion over India and over 
its trade, England every year sends out many of her 
best young men as government officials or as officers 
in the army. In a way their life seems easy. They 
are surrounded by servants. Everybody who lives in 
the East has many servants. Each one costs very little, 
say from three to fifteen dollars a month; and each 
does very little work. If a man owns two horses, he 
must keep a servant to look after each horse. Another 
servant must be employed to buy all that is needed for 



342 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



the house; another to cook; and still others for every sort 
of work. The man who is employed to take care of the 
horses is angry if he is asked to weed the garden. It is 
not his work, he says. It belongs to a man of some other 
caste. The foreigner in India cannot do all these things 
himself. In the first place he has not time; and in the 
second place he cannot stand it. For the first year or 
two, a European can work as hard in India as at home. 
Then a change comes, and he finds that he is tired all the 
time. His head aches, and perhaps he has a fever. The 




Copyright l>y Undewood & rnderwood. 

Simla, among the Himalayas, the summer capital of India 



INDIA 343 

doctor tells him that he must get away to the "Hills," 
by which he means the mountains. Many a man goes 
to India and ruins his health while he is still compara- 
tively young. India is not the place for white men. 

The location of the capital of India is an interesting 
example of the effect of the climate on Europeans. For- 
merly the great city of Calcutta, at the mouth of the 
Ganges, was the capital, but when the King of England 
visited India in 191 1 he annoimced that the capital 
would be changed to Delhi on the Jumna River, one of 
the main tributaries of the Ganges. Delhi is situated 
almost in the center of the great Indo-Gangetic Plain and 
is more easily reached from the coimtry as a whole than is 
Calcutta. Also, it was the former capital of India in 
the days when the famous Mogul emperors came down 
from central Asia, three or fotir centuries ago, and estab- 
lished the most extensive empire that ever existed in the 
country before the coming of the English. Moreover, 
the people of the Punjab province, in which Delhi is 
located, are not so opposed to foreign rule as are those of 
Bengal, where Calcutta is situated. All these reasons 
bore a part in causing the British government to change 
the location of the capital, but the debilitating climate 
of Calcutta was more important than any of them. In 
summer Delhi is hotter than Calcutta but the climate 
is not so moist and enervating, and in winter it is quite 
cool and comfortable. Even Delhi, however, is not 
blessed with a summer climate that is healthful for Euro- 
peans. Accordingly, in the spring the government offi- 
cials and thousands of other people move to Simla, high 
among the Himalayas, and there they stay until fall. 
Up at Simla a large number of government buildings 
have been erected, and all the work of the government 
goes on just as in the capital. Each of the great provinces 



344 ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 

of India has its own "Hill Station," or simimer 
place, in the mountains. Missionaries, merchants, sol- 
diers, and all foreigners who can possibly do so, go to the 
motmtains during the rainy season. It is very expensive, 
but less expensive than to be sick or to come home to 
America or Europe. Three hundred years ago the Eng- 
lish first went to India, but still they are foreigners. 
And so they must always be. As the mountains give 
life to northern India by furnishing, the soil for the great 
plains and by causing the warm rain to fall and the rivers 
to flow, so too the mountains furnish life to the English 
in India, and help to make it possible for England to 
continue her rule. Without the Himalayas, the greatest 
of mountains, the English would find it far harder than 
they now do to maintain the great Indian Empire as part 
of the still greater British Empire. 



THE INDEX 



All figures refer to pages; stars indicate illustrations and maps. 



Abana Biver, 69. 

Aborigines, Afghanistan, 118; Burma, 
301; China, 233, 285; India, 285, 
338. • 

Aden, 308; a British warship lying 
at anchor at Back Bay Harbor at, 45*. 

^gean Sea, 73. 

Afghanistan, 28, 100, 102, 112-120, 
334; boundary troubles, 113-114; 
the "buflfer state," 114; climate, 
115; commerce, 112; digging a well 
on the border of, 117*; farming 
country, 116; food, 115; homes, 
ll5; irrigation, 116; plateaus, 115- 
16; population, 112; products, 115, 
116; raids, 117-118; rainfall, 115, 
116; religions, 118; route from 
Europe to India, 118; Siah-Posh 
tribes, 118; women making bread, 
115*. 

Africa, 51, 205, 305, 314. 

Agra, 317, 323, 325, 334. 

Ahmadabad, 308. 

Alabama, 249. 

Alaslia, 33. 

Alligators, 288. 

Allong Bay, 294. 

Alphabet, Phcenicia, 68. 

Alps, 195. 

Altai, 157. 

America, 1, 11, 45, 61, 66, 92, 101, 
103, 123, 133, 135, 153, 162, 182, 
192, 200, 210, 212, 213, 220, 221, 
223, 226, 229, 254, 273, 276, 294, 
301, 306, 316, 344. 

Amu Biver, 32. 

Amur Biver, 138, 172. 

Amusements, China, 273-275; Cho- 
sen, 190; Japan, 199*, 218-219. 

Anatolia (Asia Minor), 1-12, 28. 29, 
73-83, 87, 185, 187, 269, 295; cli- 
mate, 3; coast, 73, 74, 76; dogs, 79; 
famine, 12; fruit, 8, 76; harbors, 75, 
76; hospitality, 11 ; houses, 77 ; inhabi- 
tants, 79; irrigation, 9; nomads, 
79-81; plateau, 76-79, 84; political 
condition, 9; products, 8, 9, 10; 
railroads, 76, 77; rainfall, 9, 77, 
78, 80; rivers, 74; shepherd boys, 
80-81; surface. 73, 74-76; town, 
typical, 78*; trade routes, 75; trans- 
portation, 1, 2, 3; trees, 78; a 
Turk sowing wheat in, 80*; Turkish 
children carrying grain from the 
fields in, 74*; a Turkish dinner in, 
81-83; vegetables, 8; vegetation, 
77; a village of mud and stone in, 
7*; villages, 10,77-79; wheat, 10, 79. 



Ancestor worship, China, 16, 222, 
259-262; Chosen, 191, 222; Japan, 
222; Siam, 222. 

Animals, domestic, Arabia, 49, 50; 
Arctic regions, 19; Armenia, 87, 89*; 
Caucasia, 91; China, 242, 250, 271; 
Damascus, 69; India, 300, 307, 319, 
320, 331, 336; Japan, 206; Man- 
churia. 179; Mesopotamia, 72; North- 
ern Asia, 19, 31; Palestine, 58-59, 
61, 62; Persia, 102, 103, 106, 110; 
Russian Turkistan, 128; Siam, 297, 
298-300, 300*; Siberia, 142, 146, 
147; Tian Shan, 159, 161, 162; 
Tibet, 22, 23, 154; Transcaspia, 
128; tundras, 145. 

Animals, wild, America, 135; Anato- 
lia, 81; Arctic regions, 19; Chosen, 
183; India, 36, 310, 318, 336, 338- 
339; Indo-China, 287, 288; Malay 
Peninsula, 288-289, 291; Manchuria, 
178; Palestine, 61; Persia, 110; Siam, 
293, 298-299; Siberia, 135; Southern 
Asia, 36. 

Animists, 307. 

Annam, 33, 292, 295, 302. 

Antelope, 288. 

Anti-Lebanon, 67, 70. 

Ants, 318. 

Appalachian Highland, 135, 153. 

Appalachians, 67, 135, 195. 

Apples, Armenia, 87; Asia Minor, 8; 
Persia, 99. 

Apricots, Armenia, 87; Asia Minor, 8; 
Lop Basin, 166; Persia, 99; Trans- 
caspia, 124. 

Arabia, 28, 38, 44-51, 53, 63, 170, 
285, 336; Arabs with tents and cam- 
els halting in the desert, 47*; boys, 
Arab, in Palestine, 50*; climate, 44- 
45, 51, 53 ; commerce, 44; farming, 46 ; 
inhabitants, 46; oases, 46; population, 
44; raids, 48-51; religion, 44; sur- 
face, 46; vegetation, 44, 45; winds 
and rainfall, 46; women carrying 
water from a spring in old kerosene 
cans, 48*. 

Arabia Felix, 46. 

Arabian Peninsula, 44. 

Arab traveler In an oasis ready to join 
a caravan for a journey in the 
desert, 40*. 

Aral, Lake, 32, 58. 

Ararat, Mount, 84. 

Aras Biver, 28. 

Aravalli Hills, 315, 317, 335. 

Arctic current, 196. 

Arctic Ocean, 33, 125, 138, 145, 146. 



(XV) 



XVI 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



Arctic regions, climate, 18; hunting 
and trapping, 19; nomads, 18; rain- 
fall, 20. 

Areca palms, 311. 

Arizona, 305, 315. 

Arjmand Banu Begam, 334. 

Arliansas Biver, 249. 

Armenian Plateau, 28, 84-89, 90, 
92, 100, 101; basin-plains, 85-87; 
food, 88; fruits, 87, 88; highlands, 87; 
houses, 86, 87; irrigation, 86; Kurd- 
ish raids, 88-89; nomads, 87; races, 
87-89; river transportation, 85; river 
valleys, 84, 85; sheep, 87, 89*; sur- 
face features, 84, 85; villages, 86*. 
87; volcanoes, 84; wheat, 87. 

Asama-yama, lava covered with ashes 
at the top of the volcano, 197*; the 
valley through which the ascent of 
the volcano is made, 196*. 

Ashkabad, 126. 

Asia, 26, 27, 58, 84, 96, 107, 184, 192, 
193, 196, 228, 310, 317, 334; central, 
90, 310, 343; divisions of, 25-37; in- 
habitants of the high, cold plateaus 
of central, 22*; physical, between 
pp. 26, and 27*; plants, principal, 
facing p. 59*; political, between pp. 
8 and 9*; population, density of, 
facing p. 153*; products, commercial, 
between pp. 134 and 135*; races of 
man, facing p. 308*; rainfall, mean 
annual, facing p. 8*; rainfall, seasonal 
distribution of, facing p. 9*; relation 
of customs and geographic conditions 
in, 23-24; religions, facing p. 39*; 
temperature, mean annual range, 
facing p. 134*; temperature, mean, 
for January, facing p. 26*; tempera- 
ture, mean, for July, facing p. 27*; 
transportation, between pp. 8 and 9*; 
vegetation, areas of natural, between 
pp. 134 and 135*. 

Asia Minor, 1-12, 73-83; bazaar in, 7; 
dress, 1, 4, 5; food, 5-6; inn, 1-6; 
a typical town in, 78*; village, 10; 
writing, 5. See also Anatolia. 

Assam, 316, 317; rainfall, 315. 

Atlantic Ocean, 33. 

Atlantic Plain, in America, 153. 

Atlantic Slope, in America, 153. 

Atlantic states, 195. 

Australia, 229. 

Austria, 340. 

Azov, Sea of, 32. 

Bagdad, 71. 

Baku, 90, 92, 93-96, 122; in the oil 
fields at, 93*; the water supply of, 
95-96. 

Balkan States, 340. 

Baltic Sea, 120. 

Baluchi minstrel and his boys beside 
a hut of reed matting on the border 
of Afghanistan, 113*. 

Baluchistan, 28, 100, 102, 120, 316. 

Bamboo, China, 233, 280; India, 311, 
312, 318; Indo-China, 286, 289. 
290; Japan, 204, 207, 212. 



Bananas, Indo-China, 291, 296; 

Southern Asia, 35. 
Bangkok, 292, 297, 298, 300. 
Banyan tree, 311. 
Barada River, 69. 
Barter, 61-62. 
Batum, 90, 91, 92; porters or hamals 

in the streets of, 90*; a watering cart 

at, 95*. 
Bean cake, 171, 172. 
Bean oil, 172, 176. 
Beans, Manchuria, 171, 176, 179; 

United States, 171, 172. 
Bears, America, 135; Manchuria, 178; 

Palestine, 61. 
Beaver, 135. 
Beets, 99. 
Beirut, 62, 69. 
Benares, 330, 332, 333. 
Bengal, 305, 310-313, 314, 315, 316, 

322, 325, 336, 337, 343. 
Bengal, Bay of, 314. 
Bengali, 304. 
Bengalis, 313 

Bethlehem, 56; Rachel's tomb at, 56*. 
Bibl-Eibat, 93. 
Birch, 142. 
Birds' nests, China, 266; Indo-China 

and Malay Peninsula, 302. 
Black Sea, 75, 77, 90, 91, 92, 118, 

120. 
Bombay, 36, 308, 309, 314, 330, 337. 
Bombay, Presidency, 307. 
Bosporus, 75, 120. 
Boston, 171, 172. 
Brahmans, 306, 307, 308, 327, 328, 

332, 333, 336, 338. 
Brahmaputra Biver, 305, 311, 312, 

315, 322. 
Breadfruit, 296. 
Bread making, among the Afghans, 

115*, 140; among the Turkomans, 

140. 
British Empire, 344. 
Buddhism, Burma, 301; China, 233, 

278-279; Chosen, 182, 191; Eastern 

Asia, 34; India: 307; Buddhist cave 

temples that have been carved in 

rock, India, 337*; Indo-China, 297; 

Japan, 192, 208; Siam, 301; Tibet, 

155 
Buffalo, New York, 224. 
Buffaloes, Caucasia, 91*; Chi.na, 271; 

Siam, 293. 
Bukhara, 129. 
Buriats, 19, 135. 
Burma, 33, 35, 225, 299, 300-302; 

aborigines, 301; Burmese people, 

301; religion and education, 301- 

302; schoolboys and their teacher 

near the Irawadi River, facing p. 1*; 

women, 302. 
Cabbage, 243. 
Calcutta, 257, 311, 312, 316, 337, 

343 
California, 305. 
Cambodian ruins, 295, 297. 
Cambodians, 295. 



THE INDEX 



xvii 



Camels, Arabia, 49; India, 336; 
Persia, 102. 103, 110; Siberia, 146, 
147; Tian Shan, 159, 161; Trans- 
caspia and Russian Turkistan, 128. 

Camphor tree, 204. 

Canada, 135, 137. 

Canton, 239; river people, 282; 
showing the new Bund or parkway 
along the river, 281.* 

Caravans, Kuenlun Mountains, 26; 
Persia, 101; Siberia, 147; Syrian 
Desert, 70. 

Carmel, Mount, 68. 

Caspian Sea, 32, 84, 92, 93, 96, 101, 
121-122, 124, 134. 

Caste, India, 306, 307, 308, 310, 325, 
327, 328, 342. 

CatskUls, 269. 

Cattle, China, 242; India, 307, 331; 
Northern Asia, 31; Persia, 106; 
Siberia, 142; Tian Shan, 159, 161. 

Caucasia, 28; forests, 91; oil fields, 
90-96; ■ plowing with a wooden 
plow drawn by buffaloes, near 
Batum, 91*; railroad, 90, 91, 92; 
rainfall, 90, 92. 

Caucasian race, 284. 

Caucasus Mountains, 30, 91, 92, 122. 

Cauvery River, 338. 

Cawnpur, 330. 

Cedar, forest near Beirut, frontispiece; 
India, 318; Siberia, 142. 

Central West, United States, 122. 

Ceylon, 314, 317. 

Champlain, Lake, 104. 

Chantos, Lop Basin, 165, 166-167; 
Chanto dinner of sour milk and coarse 
corn bread, 167*; Chanto men and 
boy drinking tea in a garden, 166*. 

Chemulpo, winnowing grain in the 
streets of, 188*. 

Chenab Canal, 326. 

Cherry tree, 215. 

Chesapeake Bay, 173. 

Chestnut trees, 91. 

Chicago, 134, 163. 

Chickens, 242. 

"ChUdren's Paradise," 218. 

China, 12, 13, 26, 27, 30, 33, 121, 147, 
152, 171, 180, 181, 182, 192, 221- 
283, 284, 285, 289, 292, 317, 325; 
aborigines, 233; amusements, 273- 
275; ancestor worship, 16, 259-262; 
animals, domestic, 242,250; barbers, 
itinerant, 277*; barriers causing isola- 
tion, 223-225; beggars, 258-259; 
bride in a sedan chair, 260*; canals, 
251; carpenters at work, 257*; 
China Proper, 153, 169, 228; civili- 
zation of, 221; climate, 227-229, 
276; coast, 269; coolies carrying 
coal, 231*; cue, 242; debt-paying, 
275-276; diversity and unity of, 
233-234; divisions of eastern, 226- 
227; dress, 237, 251-252; drought, 
245-247, 283; economy, 231; em- 
peror, 236; famines, 15, 16, 17, 230, 
232, 246-247, 249, 283; farming. 



227, 229, 230, 243; floods, 15, 266- 
267, 283; food, 16, 17, 231, 232, 
265, 266; foot-binding, 242-243; 
forests, 229, 249, 270; funerals. 
259; girls, treatment of, 259-262; 
government, 17-18; governor in his 
official robes of silk, 34*; Great Wall, 
223, 224*; guilds, 257-258; houses, 
244, 250-251; industry, 230-231; 
irrigation, 14, 271 *; isolation of, 221- 
222, 223-225; "kangs," 251-252; 
language, 13, 238-240; law, 253- 
254; metals, 249-250; military offi- 
cers with fans and smoked glasses, 
237*; military parade to welcome a 
Manchurian governor, 176*; moun- 
tains, 227, 270; names, 267-268; 
New Year's Festival, 273-275; New 
Year's greetings, 274*; northwestern 
plateau provinces, 249-251; opium 
and opium smoking, 275; orchards, 
271; Peking and the Hwang-ho, 
235-252; physical form of, 225- 
227; plains, 249; population, 227, 
229-231, 249, 282; poverty, 231-232; 
prisoner wearing the heavy wooden 
frame, 255*; punishments, 254-255; 
railroads, 250; rainfall, 14, 15, 228- 
229, 230, 249, 271, 282; rapid transit 
in China: seeing the country on a 
wheelbarrow, 241*; religions, 278- 
279; rice, 15, 271, 277; roads, 230; 
schoolboys, 262*; schools, 262-265; 
Shantung and the provinces of the 
Yangtse-kiang, 253-268; soil and 
climate, 276; soldier on duty in the 
provinces, 180*; Southern China, 
269-283; spirit, unwarlike, 271-272; 
superstitions, 244-246; surface, 12, 
229, 269-271, 282; tea, 276; a 
temple, 246*; theaters, 261 ; transpor- 
tation, 12*, 14*, 238, 241*; vegeta- 
tion, 279-280; village, entrance to, in 
North China, 226*; village among 
the mountains of South China, 
227*; village, typical, 244*; weddings, 
259-262; wheelbarrows, 14*, 241*, 
256*; writing, 13, 238-240; Yangtse- 
kiang, provinces of, 256-268. 

Chinese Turkistan, 157, 223, 224; 
a roadway in an oasis in, 168*. 

Chosen, 33, 153, 172, 182-191, 192, 
222, 228, 266; animals, wild, 182, 
183; climate and seasons, 183, 184- 
185; famines, 191; farming, 184; 
fishing and fisher folk, 187-188; food, 
188; forests, 182; games, 190; 
hairdressing, 188-189; harbors, 191; 
homes, 187, 189-190; marriage. 
189; minerals, 183, 191; mountains, 
182-184; mourning customs, 190- 
191; population, 183; progress, 191, 
rainfall, 184, 191; religion, 191; re- 
sources, 183; rice, 184, 185; scenery, 
191; soil, 191; tides, 185, 187; trans- 
portation, 189; women, 190. 

Christian religion. Northern Asia; 
32; Palestine, 66; United States, 306. 



XVlll 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



Cincinnati, 163. 

Coal, America, 294; China, 249, 251; 
Eastern Asia, 33; Indo-China, 294; 
Siberia, 32. 

Cochin-China, 295-297. 

Cocoanut palms, Bengal, 311; Indo- 
China, 287, 296; Malay Peninsula, 
288, 289; Southern Asia, 35. 

Colorado, 25, 26, 28. 

Compass, in China, 221. 

Confucianism, 278-279. 

Confucius, 233, 253, 259. 

Connecticut, 326. 

Connecticut River, 326. 

Constantinople, 42, 75, 90, 120. 

Cormorant Ashing, China, 266; 
Japan, 201-202. 

Corn, India, 324; Southwestern Asia, 
29. 

Cotton, Russian Turkistan, 133; 
Southern China, 280. 

Crocodiles, 289, 291. 

Cucumbers, Palestine, 62; Persia, 
99 

Cue,* China, 242. 

Dalbutsu, or image of Buddha at 
Kamakura, 193*. 

Damascus, 39, 42, 44, 63, 69-70. 

Dates, 48, 49. 

Dead Sea, 23, 53, 54, 57, 58. 

Deccan, 317*. 318. 

Deer, 288. 

Delaware River, 45. 

Delhi, 333, 343. 

Deodar, 318. 

Dervishes, 97 *. 

Deserts, 47*. 127*; Gobi, 251; Mesopo- 
tamia, 72; Mongolia, 156; Persia, 
101, 102-104; Sahara, 314; South- 
western Asia, 40, 69, 70; Syrian, 
70-72; Takhla Makan, 163-164; 
Transcaspia, 127. 

Detroit, 163. 

Dogs, Anatolia, 79; Palestine, 61; dog 
farms, Manchuria, 178. 

Domestic animals, see Animals. 

Donkeys, 69, 102, 103. 

Dragon Festival, China, 273. 

Duluth, 66. 

Earthquakes, 211-212. 

East, The, 92, 303. 

Eastern Asia, 27, 33-34, 35, facing p. 
152*, 314; boundaries, 33, 152; 
climate, 33-34; divisions of, natural, 
152; farming, 33, 34; inhabitants, 
34; minerals, 33; occupations, 34; 
population, 33, 152; rainfall, 33; 
religion, 34; rivers, navigable, 33. 

Eastern Ghats, 314. 

Eastern Hemisphere, 172. 

East Indies, 51. 

Egypt, 62, 63, 314. 

Elburz Mountains, 101, 122. 

Elephanta Island, 36, 337. 

Elephants, Burma, 299-300; India, 
336; Indo-China, 288; Rangoon, 
piling teak at, 300*; Siam, 297, 298- 
300. 



England, 36, 113, 114, 118, 119, 120, 
194, 223, 250, 253, 256. 284, 285. 
303, 307, 339. 340, 341, 343, 344. 

Ephesus, ruins of, 76. 

Eregli, 1, 29, 81. 

Ermine, 135. 

Euphrates River, 28, 70, 71. 

Eurasia, 173, 174. 

Europe, 35, 66, 90. 92, 96, 119, 135, 
139, 153, 182, 192, 200, 220, 221, 
222, 223, 253, 254, 276, 301, 334, 
340 344. 

Everest, Mount, 319. 

Ever-White Mountains, 182, 185. 

Fakirs, 332. 

Famines, Asia Minor, 12; China, 15, 
16. 17, 230, 232. 246, 247, 249, 
283, 285, 325; Chosen. 185, 191; 
India, 324*, 324-325, 326-327, 336; 
Pale.stine, 64; Persia, 99; Russia, 
136; Southern Asia, 35; South- 
western Asia. 29. 

Far East, 34. 192. 

Farming, Afghanistan, 116; Arabia, 
46; China, 227, 229, 230, 243, 280; 
Chosen, 184; Eastern Asia, 33, 34; 
India, 324; Indo-China, 289-290; 
Japan, 193, 199, 200, 204, 207; 
Manchuria, 180; Northern Asia, 31, 
32; Palestine, 59, 62; Russian Tur- 
kistan, 133; Seistan, 108-109; Si- 
beria, 31, 32; Southern Asia, 35; 
Southwestern Asia, 30; Tibet, 155. 

Far North, 18-20, 21. 

Figs, Anatolia, 76; India, 313; Pales- 
tine, 59, 60. 61. 

Fish, Arctic regions. 19, 145; China, 
266; Japan, 193, 201-202; Lop 
Basin, 169. 

Floods, China, 15, 248-249, 266 ,283; 
Mesopotamia, 71; Transcaspia, 125- 
126. 

Florida, 195, 249, 305. 314. 

Fokien, 270-271, 276-277. 

Foochow, 239, 269, 270-271, 273, 
277, 279; looking across its many 
tiled roofs to the mountains which 
rise in the distance, 270*. 

Foot-binding, China, 242-243. 

Forests, Caucasia, 91; China, 229, 
249, 270; Chosen, 182, 183; 
India, 315, 318; Indo-China, 285- 
287, 289-290; Japan, 193, 197, 198; 
Malay Peninsula, 302; Manchuria, 
178, 180; Northern Asia, 31, 32; 
Persia, 122; Siberia, 144; a tropical 
forest where the ferns are thirty feet 
high, 286*; United States, 144. 

"Fortunate Arabia," 46, 51. 

Four Great Divisions of Asia, 25-37. 

Fowlers, 105-108. Ill; a group of, 
before a reed house, 105*. 

Foxes, Arctic region, 19; Manchuria, 
178; Palestine, 61; Siberia, 135. 

France, 112. 285. 

French Colonies, Indo-China, 294. 

French Indo-China, 153. 



THE INDEX 



XIX 



Fruit, America, 61; Anatolia, 76 
Arabia, 48, 49; Armenia, 87, 88 
Asia Minor, 6, 8; Caucasia, 91 
Ctiina, 243, 280; India. 311, 313. 331 
Indo-China, 287, 291, 296; Japan, 
204, 215; Lop Basin, 166; Malay 
Peninsula, 288, 289; Palestine, 59- 
61, 61*, 62; Persia, 99, 109; Russian 
Turkistan, 132, 133; Siberia, 145; 
Southern Asia, 35; Transcaspia, 124. 

Fuji, 194, 219. 

FuJi-san, 194. 

Fuji-yama, 195. 

Furs, America, 135; Manchuria, 176; 
Siberia, 135. 

Fusan, 187; looking northwest across 
the native section, 186*. 

Galilee, 59. 

Galilee, Sea of, 57, 63. 

Ganges Eiver, 249, 305, 306, 311, 
312, 317, 322, 330, 332, 333, 343. 

Garlic, 5. 

Gas, natural, 94, 95. 

George Town, 284. 

Georgians, 92. 

Germany, 112, 253, 256. 

Ghats, Eastern, 314. 

Ghats, Western, 305, 314. 

Ghilan, 122. 

Ghor, The, 55-57, 58, 59, 67. 

Glaciers, 321. 

Goats, 103. 

Gobi, 251. 

"Godowns," 213. 

Gogra River, 322. 

Gokcha, Lake, 85. 

Gold, Chosen, 183; Manchuria, 180; 
Siberia, 139. 

Grain grinding in Manchuria, 171*. 

Grand Canal, China, 266. 

Grapes, America, 61; Asia Minor, 8; 
China, 243; Lop Basin, 166; Pales- 
tine, 61; Persia, 99; Syrian peasant 
with a basket of, 61*. 

Grazing, Afghanistan, 115-116; Ar- 
menia, 87, 89*; China, 250; Mesopo- 
tamia, 72; Northern Asia, 19, 31; 
Palestine, 58-59 ; Persia, 106; Siberia, 
146; Southwestern Asia, 30; Tian 
Shan, 158-159; Tibet, 22, 23, 154; 
Transcaspia and Russian Turkistan, 
128. 

Great Britain, 200. 

Great Khingan Range, 152, 153. 

Great Wall, China, 223, 224*. 236. 

Greece, 212. 222. 

Guilds, China, 257-258. 

Gulf Stream, 195. 

Gunpowder, China, 221. 

Haifa, 63. 

Hamburg, 257. 

Hanoi, 294. 

Hares, 19. 

Hay, 142. 

Hedin, 164. 

Helmand River, 104, 108, 111, 114, 
116. 

Herat, 112, 119. 



Heri-Rud, 112, 116, 119, 126. 

Hermon, Mount, 57. 

Himalaya Mountains, 27, 33, 35, 152, 
308, 315, 316, 318-322, 343, 344; 
among the snow-crowned sunmiits of, 
in north India, 304*; a valley among 
the high steep slopes of, 319*. 

Hinduism, 36, 306-307, 308, 327- 
328, 330-333; a Hindu temple, 331*; 
a Hindu temple at the sanctuary of 
Wai, 307*. 

Hindu Kush Mountains, 104, 109. 

Hippopotamus, 288. 

Hiram, King of Tyre, 67. 

Homes, Anatolia, 77; Armenia, 86, 
87; China, 244, 250-251; Chosen, 
187, 189; India, 305*. 312; Indo- 
China, 290*, 290-291, 294, 296, 
297-298; Japan, 208-212; Kirghiz 
Steppe, 141; Lop Basin, 166; Pales- 
tine, 54; Persia, 103*; Seistan, 105*, 
109-110; Siam, 297-298; Siberia, 
141*, 142; Tian Shan, 158; Tibet, 23. 

Hong-kong, 228, 256, 269, 308. 

Horses, Arabia, 50; China, 242, 250; 
Japan, 206; Persia, 102; Siberia, 146, 
147; Tian Shan, 159, 161, 162; 
Transcaspia and Russian Turkistan, 
128 

Hot Belt, 285, 337. 

Hot springs, 216. 

Hubble-bubble, 4. 

Hudson River, 45, 269. 

Hue, 295. 

Hunting, America, 135; Arctic re- 
gions, 19; Manchuria, 180; Siberia, 
32, 145. 

Hwaiking, 225. 

Hwang-ho, 225. 226, 235, 247, 253, 
282; floods of, 248-249. 

Ichang, 225, 267. 

Illinois, 180. 

India, 20, 26, 27, 28, 35, 36, 112, 113, 
118, 119, 120, 121, 152, 192, 225, 
233, 234, 276, 278, 284, 285, 292, 
297, 298, 303, 304-344; aborigines, 
338; animals, wild, 338-339; ants, 
318; art, 308; British rule in, 339- 
344; caste, 306, 307, 308, 310, 
325, 328, 342; children rescued 
from famine, 324*; climate, 20, 22, 
316, 319, 336, 343, 344; Deccan, 
traveling in the, 317*; diversity 
of, 304-306, 310; divisions of, the 
three great, 316-318; dress, 21; 
fakirs, 332; famines, 324-325, 326- 
327, 336; food, 331; forests, 315, 
318; funeral customs, 333; glaciers 
and avalanches, 321; home charac- 
teristic of the coast region of the West- 
ern Ghats, south India, 305*; houses, 
312; irrigation, 21, 35, 326, 327; 
jewelers, 309; languages, 304; mar- 
riage, 328-330; native doctor and his 
daughter, 329*; peasants and oxen, 
20*; people 21; physical features, 
35, 343, 344; railroads, 310, 311, 
325-326, 327; rainfall, 20, 35,3151, 



XX 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



344; religion, 306-310; religious festi- 
vals, 330-333; snakes, 318, 339; 
transportation, 319, 320; vegetation, 
318; village, typical, 312; weaving, 
309; women, 309, 329, 330. 

Indiana, 180. 

Indian Ocean, 100, 120, 292. 

Indian Peninsula, 314, 335-339. 

Indians, American, 135, 306. 

Indo-China, 284-303; animals, wild, 
287; batMng, 291; Cambodian ruins, 
295-297; climate, 285, 291-292; 
coal, 294; coast, 294, 295; farming, 
289-290; food, 291; forests, 285- 
287, 289-290; French colonies in, 
294; houses, 290-291, 294, 296, 
297-298; population, 291-292; posi- 
tion and people, 284; races, 284-285; 
rainfall, 293-294; seasons, 292-294; 
slavery, 292; surface features, 286; 
vegetation, 285-287, 295-296; a vil- 
lage where the houses near the river 
are on bamboo stilts, 290*. 

Indo-Gangetic Plain, 304, 315, 
322-325, 343; bullock carts and their 
drivers in, 323*. 

Indus Plain, 20, 21. 

Indus River, 20, 310, 313, 315, 317, 
322 

Inner Asia, 33, 153-154, 174, 225; 
animals, 33; basins, 154; climate, 
33, 154; plateaus of, 152-162; 
population, 157; rainfall, 153; rivers, 
153-154; surface, 153. 

Iran, 100, 103, 120. 

Irawadi River, 285; valley, 300. 

Ireland, 36, 200, 339. 

Irkutsk, 142. 

Iron, China, 249; Eastern Asia, 33 
Siberia, 139. 

Irrigation, Afghanistan, 114, 116 
Armenia, 86; Asia Minor, 9; China 
14, 15*, 271*; Chinese Turkistan 
169; India, 21, 35, 326-327; Khiva 
114; Lop Basin, 167; Merv, 114 
Mesopotamia, 71; Palestine, 62 
Persia, 29* 98-99, 108-109, 114 
116; Russian Turkistan, 129; Seistan 
108-109; Southwestern Asia, 28-29 
Tejefi, 114; Transcaspia, 112, 129. 

Irtysh River, 32. 

Ispahan, 97, 99. 

Italy, 254, 314. 

Jackals, Palestine, 61; Seistan, 110. 

Jade, 165. 

Jaffa, 62, 63. 

Jains, 308-309. 

Jaipur, 336. 

Japan, 30, 33, 171, 181, 182, 185, 
187, 192-220, 222, 228, 232, 256, 
266, 272, 276, 302, 340; amuse- 
ments, 218-219; artistic taste in. 215; 
bamboo, 207; bathing, 216; cart 
carrying manure to fertilize the 
fields, 206*; cherry trees, 2i5; 
children in charge of a child nurse, 
218*; climate, 195-197; coast, 193; 
coolie dressed in straw rain coat and 



hat, 213*; dress, 198-199; earth- 
quakes, 211-212; fish, 193, 201- 
202; food, 200, 202-204, 206-207; 
forests, 193, 197, 198; furniture, 213- 
214; garden, typical, 220*; "go- 
downs," 213; house, interior of, 
showing mats, screens and open walls, 
209*; houses, 208-212; junk, 194*; 
mountains, 193, 195; navy, 194; 
ornaments, 214-215; people, 198- 
199, 205; physical factors, influence 
of on the people, 200; politeness, 
209, 217-218; population, 197, 
200; rainfall, 195, 197, 207, 211; 
religion, 208; scenery, 193, 197- 
198; shoes, 199, 213-214; street 
scene, 205*; surface, 193; tea, 202; 
toy-trumpet peddler, 199*; trans- 
portation, 205-207; typhoons, 212; 
volcanoes, 216; women buying sup- 
plies from a vegetable cart, 203*. 

Japan, Sea of, 197. 

Java, 284. 

Jericho, 57. 

Jerusalem, 55, 63, 64, 65-66, 67; 
street in, 65*; view of the Temple 
inclosure and Dome of the Rock, 
63*. 

Jews, 66, 306. 

Jinrikishas, 205-206. 

Jordan River, 23, 52, 53, 57, 59. 

Jordan Valley, 47, 59. 

Judea, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 64. 

Jumna River, 343. 

Kaifung, 247, 248, 249. 

Kamakura, 193. 

Kanchanjanga, 319. 

Kandahar, 119. 

Kansas, 134. 

Kansas City, 67, 282. 

Kansu, 249. 

Karachi, 311. 

Khingan Escarpment, 153, 154, 
173, 225, 226. 

Khiva, 114, 129. 

Khorassan, 101. 

Khorat, 292. 

Khotan, 165. 

Kiao-chon, 253, 256. 

Kirghiz, migrations, 158-162; mother 
and daughter coming to make a call, 
160*; nomads, 26, 154, 157. 

Kirghiz Steppe, climate, 140-141; 
homes, 141; nomadic inhabitants, 
141; rainfall, 141. 

Kites, China, 273; Japan, 219. 

Kizil-bashes, 88. 

Kizil-Irmak, 28. 

Koeit, 71. 

Korea, see Chosen. 

Krasnovodsk, 121, 122, 125. 

Kuenlun Mountains, 26, 27. 

Kung, dukes of, 253. 

Kurds, 88, 89. 

Kuro Shivi'o, 195. 

Kweichou, 225, 233. 

Lacquer tree, 204. 

Lake Ara' 30, 32. 



i 



THE INDEX 



XXI 



Lancashire, 250. 

«'Land of the Rising Sun," 192. 

"Land of the White Elephant," 298. 

Lao, 295. 

Lebanon, 67, 68. 

Lemons, 62. 

Lena River, 32, 145, 151. 

Leopards, 288. 

Lettuce, 99. 

Liau-ho, 173. 

Litani River, 67. 

Locusts, 130-131. 

Loess, China, 169, 250, 251; Lop 
Basin, 168-169; Manchuria, 180. 

Lolos, 282. 

"Looking rooms," Chosen, 191. 

Lop Basin, 157, 163-170; fish, 169; 
food, 166, 167*; homes, 166; oases, 
157, 165; products, 165, 166; rivers, 
164-165; ruins in, 167; salt, 169- 
170; zones of, 165-167. 

Loplilis, 169. 

Lop-nor, 169, 

Macao. 256. 

Madras, 314, 337. 

Maine, 25, 26, 28, 195, 196. 

Malay Archipelago, 192. 

Malay Peninsula, 35, 284, 288, 302- 
303; bird's-nests, edible, 302; croco- 
diles, 289; forests, 302; mines, 303; 
monkeys, 288-289: people, 284; pep- 
per, 303; position, 284; tin, 302; 
women, 302. 

Malay race, 284. 

Manasarowar, Lake, 321, 322. 

Manchuria, 33, 120, 152, 153, 171- 
181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 225, 228, 
249, 251, 253; agriculture, 180; 
animals, wild, 178, 179; bean cake, 
171; beans, 171, 172, 176; climate, 
173, 174; dog farms, 178; dress, 176; 
forests, 178, 180; furs, 176; grain 
grinding, 171*; an inn in, 176-177; 
merchant's son delivering a bale of 
rice, 179*; native tribes, 175; occupa- 
tions, 180; political conditions, 180- 
181; population, 173, 180; products, 
179; railway, 181; rainfall, 173- 
174; resemblances and differences 
between Manchuria and the United 
States, 172, 173; robbers, 177; 
surface, 173, 180; transportation, 
175-176; winds, 173-174. 

Manchus, 180, 242, 271. 

Mangrove, 295. 

Maples, 91. 

Maritime Plain, 62, 63. 

Mazanderan, 122. 

Mecca, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 49, 
54, 66, 307. 

Medina, 38, 41, 42, 46, 63. 

Mediterranean Sea, 57, 59, 67, 77. 

Mekong River, 225, 285, 292, 295,296. 

Melons, Armenia, 88; Asia Minor, 8; 
China, 243; Persia, 99, 109; Siberia, 
145. 

Menam River, 285, 287, 292, 297- 
298. 



Mencius, 253. 

Merv, 112; home of a Russian official 
in the oasis of, 130*; oasis of, 114, 
127 129 

Mesopotamia, 28, 51, 67, 70-72, 76, 
85; desert, 72; floods, 71-72; irri- 
gation, 71; products, 72; rainfall, 
72. 

Mexico, Gulf of, 153, 249. 

Miaotse, 282. 

Michigan, 172, 180. 

Middle Kingdom, China, 225, 253. 

Millet, China, 232, 243, 246; Chosen, 
188; India, 324, 331, 338; Man- 
churia, 176, 179; Southern Asia, 35. 

Minerals, America, 294; China, 249- 
250; Chosen, 183, 191; Eastern Asia, 
33; Indo-China, 294; Lop Basin, 
165, 169, 170; Malay Peninsula, 
302, 303; Manchuria, 180; Pales- 
tine, 57; Siberia, 32, 138-139. 

Mink, 135. 

Minnesota, 66, 134. 

Min River, 269; Chinese junk on, at 
Foochow, 269*. 

Mississippi, 249. 

Mississippi River, 45, 154, 155, 
226, 249. 

Mississippi Valley, 305. 

Missouri River, 45. 

Mitchell, Mount, 67. 

Moab, 58, 63; bread making, 55; 
crops, 54; rainfall, 53; surface, 53; 
villages, 54, 55. 

Moguls, 310, 334, 343. 

Mohammedans, Afghanistan, 118; 
Arabia, 44; Asia Mmor, 2, 8, 81, 83; 
China, 282; India, 307, 333-335; 
Malay Peninsula, 291, 302; North- 
ern Asia, 31; Palestine, 66; Persia, 
309; Russian Turkistan, 121; South- 
western Asia, 30, 38-43; Transcaspia, 
121 122-123 

Mongolia, 33, 157, 223, 251; climate, 
156; desert, 156; encampment, a 
Mongol, 157*; occupations, 156; pop- 
ulation, 156; rainfall, 156. 

Mongolian race, 34, 284. 

Monkeys, India, 318; Indo-China, 
287, 288; Malay Peninsula, 288, 
289. 

Monsoons, Arabia, 46; China, 246, 
249, 266, 271, 282; Japan, 211; 
India, 314-315, 324, 335; Indo- 
China, 292, 295; Malay Peninsula, 
292. 

Montgomery, 249. 

"Moonshine," 267. 

Mountains, Appalachians, 67, 135, 
195; Ararat, 84; Aravalli Hills, 315, 
317, 335; Asama-yama, 196*, 197*; 
Carmel, 68; Catskills, 269; Cauca- 
sus, 30, 91, 92, 122; Eastern Ghats, 
314; Elburz, 101, 122; Everest, 
319; Ever-White, 182, 185; Fuji- 
san, 194, 219; Great Khingan, 152, 
153; Hermon, 57; Himalayas, 27- 
33, 35, 152, 304*, 308, 315, 316, 318, 



XXll 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



322, 319*. 320*, 343, 344; Hindu 
Rush, 104, 109; Kanchanjanga, 319; 
Khingan Escarpment, 153, 154, 173, 
225,226; Kuenlun, 26, 27; Lebanon, 
67, 68; Mitchell, 67; Nimrud Dagh, 
84; Pikes Peak, 155, 195; Stanovoi, 
152; Sulaiman, 113, 119; Taurus 
85; Tian Shan, 32; Ural, 135, 138, 
150; Vindhya Range, 315, 317; 
Western Ghats, 305, 314. 

Mukden, 177, 178, 181. 

Mulberries, 6. 

Mulberry trees, Armenia, 87. 88; 
Japan, 204; Persia, 99; Russian 
Turkistan, 133; Transcaspia, 124. 

Mustard, 323. 

3Iysore, 314, 338. 

Nanking, 266. 

Nazaretli, Syrian women bringing 
water from a fountain at, 54* . 

Nebraska, 134. 

Nectarines, 99. 

Nestorians, 88, 89. 

New England, 172, 173, 180, 207, 
305. 

Newfoundland, 196. 

New Jersey, 180. 

New Mexico, 305, 314. 

New Orleans, 257. 

New York, city, 45, 163, 256-257, 
325; state, 172, 180, 305. 

Nikko, hotels in the region of, 210*; 
one of the temples of, 211*. 

Nile River, 249. 

Nimrud Dagh, 84. 

Nineveh, ruins of, 70-71. 

Ningpo, 239, 279. 

Nomads, Anatolia, 79-81; Arabia, 
46-48; Arctic regions, 18; Armenia, 
87; Baluchistan, 120; Chinese Tur- 
kistan, 223; Kirghiz, 26, 31*, 141, 
154, 157; Manchuria, 180; Mongo- 
lia, 156, 223; Persia, 103* 104; 
Russian Turkistan, 128; Seistan. 
104-105, 110; Southwestern Asia, 
30; Tian Shan, 157, 158; Tibet, 23, 
154; Transcaspia, 128. 

North America, 153, 154, 173, 196. 

North Dakota, 134. 

Northern Asia, 30-33, 100, facing p. 
135*; agriculture, 31, 32; climate, 
30, 31, 32; forests, 31, 32; hunting, 
32; plains, 121; occupations, 31; 
rainfall, 31, 32; religion, 31; rivers, 
32; surface, 121. 

Northwestern plateau provinces, 
China, 249-252. 

Oases, Arabia, 46; Baluchistan, 120; 
Bukhara, 129; Khiva, 114, 129; 
Lop Basin, 157, 165; Merv, 114, 
129; Russian Turkistan, 131 ; Seistan, 
114; Tejen, 114; Transcaspia, 30, 
125. 

Ob River, 32. 

Ohio, 180 

Ohio River, 45, 226. 

Oil, America, 92; Caucasia, 90-96 

Okhotsk, Sea of, 30, 152. 



Olives, 59, 60; oil, 60; old orchard 

in Palestine, 60*. 

Omaha, 67. 

Oman, 46, 51. 

Omsk, 142. 

Onions, AnatoUa, 81; Persia, 99. 

Opium, 176, 275. 

Oranges, Anatolia, 76; China, 280; 
Indo-China, 296; Palestine, 62. 

Oregon, 305. 

Orontes River, 67. 

Osmanlis, 79. 

Ostyaks, 144. 

Oudh, 317, 323. 

Pacific coast states, 134. 

Pacific Ocean, 33, 118, 143, 144, 152, 
153, 174, 192, 207. 

Pacific Slope, 154, 157, 174; climate. 
153; divisions, 153; population, 152- 
153; rainfall, 152; surface, 152. 

Palestine, 51, 53-66, facing p. 58*, 67, 
336; altitude, 23; animals, wild, 
61; barter, 61-62; cisterns, 64; cli- 
mate, 23, 54; coast, 62; coastal 
plain, 68; communication, lines of, 
63-64; cucumbers, 62; farming, 59; 
fruit, 59-61, 62; government, 59; 
grain raising, 62; harbors, 62, 63; 
houses, 54; irrigation, 62; Maritime 
Plain, 62, 63; orchard, old olive, 60*; 
rainfall, 54, 59, 62, 64-65; religion, 
66; seed time, 65; sheep, 58-59; 
surface, 59; Syrian peasant with his 
basket of grapes, 61*; trade, 63; the 
Wilderness of the Scapegoat: a view 
near the Jordan River, 52*. 

Palms, Arabia, 47, 49; China, 280; 
India, 311, 312, 337; Indo-China, 
287, 291, 296; Mesopotamia, 72; 
Palestine, 57. 

Palmyra, 70; ruins of a colonnaded 
street in 71*. 

Pamirs, 27, 30, 32, 100, 152, 316. 

Parrots, 287. 

Parsis, 306, 309-310; Towers of 
Silence, 309. 

Peaches, Armenia, 87; Asia Minor, 8; 
Lop Basin, 166; Persia, 99. 

Pears 99 

Pechiii, 266; plains of, 241-242. 

Pechili Gulf of, 235, 248. 

Peking, 166, 224, 225, 226, 233, 234, 
235, 236-238, 247, 257, 261, 266; 
Peking and the Hwang-ho, 235-252. 

Penang, 284, 303. 

Pennsylvania, 180, 250, 305. 

Pepper, 303. 

Peppers, 81. 

Persia, 28, 30, 38, 51, 85, 89, 90, 97- 
111, 114, 116, 119, 120, 121, 125, 
129, 140, 289; animals, domestic, 
102, 103; aspects of, pleasant and 
unpleasant, 97-99; bazaars, 98; 
boundary troubles, 113-114; caravan- 
serai in a village in eastern Persia, 
102*; dervishes, 97*; desert, 101, 102- 
104; famines, 99; Fowlers, 105-108; 
fruits, 99, 109; government, 100, 101, 



THE INDEX 



XXlll 



106; habitable portions of, 101; irriga- 
tion, 29*, 98, 99; merchants and bar- 
gaining, 97-98; mountains, 102-103; 
nomads, 103*, 104-105; polygamj-, 
98; rainfall, 99-101; rugs, 97; se- 
rais, 101-102; travel, modes of, 101- 
102; vegetables, 99; village among the 
mountains of, 100*. 

Peshawar, 112, 118. 

Philippine Islands, 212. 

Phoenicia, 68; Phoenicians, 67, 68. 

Pidgin English, 240. 

Pigs, China, 242; Manchuria, 179. 

Pikes Peak, 155, 195. 

Pine, Caucasia, 91; India, 318; Si- 
beria, 142. 

Plants, principal, Asia, facing p. 59*. 

Plateau states, 134. 

Plums, Armenia, 87; Asia Minor, 8; 
Lop Basin, 166; Persia, 99. 

Polyandry, 156. 

Polygamy, 98. 

Pomeloes, 296. 

Poplar trees, Armenia, 87; Persia, 98. 

Population, density of, Asia, facing p. 
153*. 

Port Arthur, 120, 256. 

Port Said, 44. 

Portugal, 256. 

Poyang, Lake of, 266. 

Primorsk, 172. 

Printing, invention of in China, 221. 

Products, commercial, of Asia, between 
pp. 134 and 135*. 

Pulses, 232. 

Punjab, 315, 317, 322, 323, 326, 343. 

"Quakers of India," 308. 

Races of man, Asia, facing p. 308*. 

Raids, Turkoman, 129. 

Railways, Afghanistan, 118-120; Ana- 
tolia, 76, 77; Asia, between pp. 8 
and 9*. 118; Caucasia, 90-92; China, 
250; Chosen, 189; from Damascus 
to Medina, 42; India, 310, 311, 325- 
326, 327; Manchuria, 181; Pales- 
tine, 63; Siberian Railway, 31, 142- 
144, 147; Transcaspian Railway, 
122-125; Turkey, 3. 

Rainfall, mean annual, Asia, facing p. 
8*; seasonal distribution of, Asia, 
facing p. 9*. 

Rajputana, 309, 335-337. 

Rajputs, 336, 338. 

Red Basin, 226, 267. 

Reindeer, 19, 145. 

Religions, Afghanistan, 118; Anatolia, 
2, 8, 81, 83; Arabia, 44; Asia, 
facing p. 39*; Burma, 301-302; 
China, 16, 233, 259-262, 278, 279* 
282; Chosen, 182, 191 ; Cochin-China, 
297; Eastern Asia, 34; India, 36*, 
278, 306-310, 307*, 327-328, 330- 
336, 331*, 337*; Japan, 192, 208; 
Malay Peninsula, 291, 302; Northern 
Asia, 31, 32; Palestine, 66; Russian 
Turkistan. 121; Siam, 301-302, 
Southwestern Asia, 30, 38-43; Tibet; 
155; Transcaspia, 121, 122-123. 



Rhine River, 92. 

Rice, Burma, 300-301; China, 14, 15* 
232, 233, 265, 271, 277, 279, 280; 
Chosen, 184-185; India, 311, 312, 
313, 331; Indo-China, 289, 291, 296 ; 
Japan, 204; Southern Asia, 35. 

Rion River, 92. 

Rivers, Amu, 32; in Anatolia, 74; 
Aras, 28; Brahmaputra, 305, 311, 
312,315, 322; Canton, 281* 282; 
Cauvery, 338; Connecticut, 326; 
Delaware, 45; Euphrates, 28, 70, 
71, 84, 85; Ganges, 249, 305. 306, 
311, 312. 317, 322, 330, 332, 333, 
343; Gogra, 322; Helmand, 104, 
108, 111, 114, 116; Heri-Rud, 112, 
116, 119, 126; Hudson, 45, 269; 
Hwang-ho, 225, 226, 235, 247, 248- 
249, 253, 282; Indus, 20, 310, 313, 
315, 317, 322; Irawadi, 285, 300; 
Irtysh, 32; Jordan, 23, 47, 52, 53, 
57, 59; Jumna, 343; Kizil-Irmak, 
28; Lena, 32, 145, 151; Liau-ho, 
173; Litani, 67; Mekong, 225, 285, 
292, 295, 296; Menam, 285, 287, 
292, 297-298; Min, 269*; Missis- 
sippi, 45, 154, 155, 226, 249, 305; 
Missouri, 45; Nile, 249; Ob, 32; 
Ohio, 45, 226; Orontes, 67; Rhine, 
92; Rion, 92; St. Lawrence, 153, 
173, 226: Salwin, 225; Schuylkill, 
45; Si-kiang, 227, 228. 256, 280, 
282; Songkoi, 285, 294; Sungari, 
173; Sutlej, 322; Syr-daria, 32; 
Tejen, 126; Tigris, 28, 71, 85; 
Volga, 96, 121; Yangtse-kiang, 12, 
225, 226, 227, 233, 248, 249, 256, 
257, 265, 266, 267, 269, 282; Yel- 
low, 235 (see also Hwang-ho) ; Yeni- 
sei, 32; West, 280. 

Rome, 70, 222. 

Roses, 99. 

Rugs, 97. 

Ruins near the Pilgrim Road from 
Damascus to Mecca, 43*. 

Russia, 30, 32, 35, 85, 96, 113, 114, 
118, 119, 120, 121, 135, 136, 137, 
143, 152. 181, 182. 

Russian girls dressed for a wedding, 
143*. 

Russian Turkistan, 121-134; cli- 
mate and rainfall, 121; religion, 121. 

Russo-Japanese War, 181. 

Sable, 135. 

Sahara 314 

Saigon,' 296; view of the water front 
at, 296*. 

St. Lawrence River, 153, 173, 226. 

St. Petersburg, 144. 

Salt, Lop Basin, 169-170; Palestine, 
57. 

Salwin River, 225. 

Samaria, 59, 63, 64. 

Samarkand, 126, 131-134; a scene 
in the streets of, 132*; a shop in. 134*. 

Sambhar, Lake, 336 

Samovars, 125. 

Samsun, 75. 



XXIV 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



San Francisco, 134. 

Santa Fe, 224. 

Sayids, 105. 

Schools, China, 262-265. 

Schuylkill River, 45. 

Scotland, 36, 116, 224, 339. 

Sea of Japan, 197. 

Sea of Okhotsk, 30. 

Sedan chair, 238, 259, 260*. 

Seistan, 102-111, 169; beasts of bur- 
den, 110; birds, 106, 107; cows, 106; 
effect of climate and physiography in, 
109-111; farmers, 108-109; Fowlers, 
group of before a reed house, 105*; 
government, 106; houses, 105-106, 
109-110; Irrigation, 108-109; lake 
of, 119; nomadic tribes of , 104-105; 
oasis of, 114; people, 110-111; a raft 
of reeds on the lake of, 107 *; rainfall, 
104, 110; reed beds, 104, 105; wind, 
109. 

Seistanis, 105, 110, 111. 

Sendai, 211. 

Serais, 101; a caravanserai in a village 
in eastern Persia, 102*. 

Shah Jehan, 334, 335. 

Shanghai, 226, 239, 256-257, 265, 
269; coolie with his wheelbarrow 
loaded with rice in front of a shop at, 
256*. 

Shanhaikuan, 224. 

Shans, 285. 

Shansi, 247, 249, 250; memorial 
temple in, 250*. 

Shantung, 185, 239, 254, 256. 

Sheep, Armenia, 87; a flock of, fol- 
lowing their shepherd, Armenia, 89* 
China, 242, 250; Mesopotamia, 72 
Palestine, 58-59, 62; Persia, 103 
Tian Shan, 159; Tibet, 22, 154 
Transcaspia and Russian Turkistan, 
128 

Shensi, 249, 250. 

Siah-Posh tribes, 118. 

Siam, 33, 152, 153, 222, 225, 292, 
297-300, 338; houseboats, 298; 
houses, 297; religion and education, 
301-302; teak, 287, 299; tides, 297- 
298; transportation by elephant, 
299-300. 

Siam, Gulf of, 152. 

Siberia, 30, 32, 34, 107, 135-151, 
153, 172, 174, 181, 197, 223; 
animals, domestic, 142, 146; cara- 
vans, 147; central Siberia, 141- 
142; climate, 32, 141; compared to 
America, 135; farming, 32, 145; 
food, 149; forests, 32, 144; furs, 
135; grains, 141, 142, 143, 144, 
147; harbors and coast trade, 138; 
hay, 142; home of Russian colonists 
in, 141*; houses, 142; hunting, 32; 
inhabitants, 136-137; minerals, 138- 
139; pioneers, of, 135-136; post 
roads, 147-150; post station, 148*, 
148-149; post wagon, Kirghiz drivers 
of, making ready for a journey, 146*; 
resources, 138-139; rivers, 150-151; 



soil and surface, 138; temperature, 
extremes of, 145-146; towns and vil- 
lages, 142-143; transportation, 146- 
147; trees, 142; vegetables, 142. 

Siberian Railway, 31, 142-144, 147. 

Sikhs, 308. 

Si-kiang, 227, 228, 256, 280, 282. 

Silk, 176; Japan, 204; Russian Tur- 
kistan, 133. 

Silkworms, 133. 

Simla, 343. 

Sind, 310-311, 313, 314, 315, 316, 
317, 322, 335. 

Singan-fu, 226. 

Singapore, 284, 302, 303. 

Smyrna, 76. 

Snakes, 36, 310, 318, 339. 

Songkoi River, 285, 294 

Soul, bull driver bringing wood into, 
190*; from the south gate, 183*. 

South Dakota, 134. 

Southern Asia, 27, 35-37, facing p. 
309*; boundaries, 35; climate, 35; 
famines, 35; farming, 35; physical 
features, 35; population, 35; prod- 
ucts, 35; religion, 36; size, 35. 

Southern states, 195. 

Southwestern Asia, 27, 28-30, 38-43, 
facing p. 38* 98, 100, 121, 228; 
climate, 40; famine, 29; irrigation 
28-29; occupations, 30; products, 29; 
rainfall, 28; religion, 30; surface, 28. 

Stanovoi Mountains, 152. 

Starlings, 131. 

Storks, 77. 

Strawberries, 91. 

Street cars, 69. 

Suchwan, 226, 267. 

Suez Canal, 42, 44. 

Sugar cane, China, 279; India, 313, 
324, 338; Indo-China, 289. 

Sulaiman Mountains, 113, 119. 

Sumatra, 284. 

Sungari River, 173. 

Sutlej River, 322. 

Syr-daria, 32. 

Syria, facing p. 58*, 62, 67-72, 76; 
Circassian oxcart in, 68*; climate, 
67; harbors, 67-68; population, 69; 
rainfall, 67, 69; trees, 67. 

Syrian Desert, 70. 

Tadmor, 70. 

Taiyuen, 247. 

Taj Mahal, 333-335, 334*. 

Takhla Makan Desert, 163-164. 

Tale Sap, 296, 297. 

Tallahassee, 249. 

Tamarisks, 108. 

Tamils, 337. 

Taoism, 278. 

Tarim Basin, 224. 

Tartar race, 31; Tartars, 135, 334. 

Tattooing, 301. 

Taurus Mountains, 85. 

Tea, 147; China, 276, 279; India, 318; 
Japan, 202; tea drinking, Persia, 98; 
Russia, 125. 

Teak, 287, 299-300. 



THE INDEX 



XXV 



Tejen, 112, 114. 

Tejen River, 126. 

Telugus, 337. 

Temperate Belt, 285; Zone, 318. 

Temperature, mean annual range of, 
Asia, facing p. 134*; mean for Jan- 
uary, Asia, facing p. 26*; mean for 
July, Asia, facing p. 27*. 

Tennessee, 155. 

Terai, 318. 

T^cxftS 305 

Tian Shan, 157; dress In, 159, 161; 
food, 162; homes, 158; migrations 
among the Kirghiz of, 158-162; 
nomads, 158; rainfall and climate, 
158; surface, 158. 

Tian Slian Mountains, 32. 

Tibet, 27, 33, 154-156, 157, 267, 284, 
285, 321, 322; altitude, 22; climate, 
22, 23, 154; dress, 23, 155; farming, 
155; homes, 23; nomads, 23, 154; 
officials on a journey, 156*; plateau, 
152, 224; population, 155; rainfall, 
154; religion, 155-156; sheep, 154; 
surface, 154; Tibetans li\ing in a 
valley which is almost as high as the 
top of Pikes Peak, 155*; vegetation, 
154; villages, 155. 

Tiflis, 92. 

Tigers, Chosen, 183; India, 310, 
338, 339; Indo-China, 288; Man- 
churia, 178. 

Tigris River, 28,71,85. 

Timour the Lame, 134. 

Tobacco, 176. 

Tokyo, 196, 205, 211, 213, 216. 

Tomsk, 142. 

Tongldng, 294. 

Topeka, 45. 

Transcaspia, 30, 112, 121-134, 139 
164; climate, 121, 127; desert, 127 
noods, 125-126; irrigation, 129 
oases, 125; occupations, 128; raids. 
129; rainfall, 121; religion, 121 
sand dunes, 125, 127; surface, 125 

Transcaspian Railway, 122-125; a 
halt at a station on, 124*. 

Transportation, Armenia: sheepskin 
rafts, 85; Asia: between pp. 8 and 9*; 
Asia Minor: freight wagons, 1, 2; 
passenger wagon, 2*; Caucasia: pipe 
lines, 92; China: carts, 238; Grand 
canal, 266; sedan chairs, 238, 
259, 260*; traveling on a junk, 
12*; wheelbarrows, 14*, 230, 241*, 
256*; Chosen: bulls, 190*; human 
porterage, 189; oxen, 189; in the 
Himalayas: human porterage, 320*; 
India: carts, 311 ; proposed route from 
Europe to, 118-120; Road of the 
Viceroy, 323; steamship lines, 311; 
traveling in the Deccan, 317*; vaks, 
319, 320; Japan: hand carts, 206*; 
jinrikishas, 205-206; junks, 194*; 
Kuenlun Mountains: caravans, 26; 
t yaks, 26; Manchuria: carts, -175; 
Palestine: harbors, railways, roads, 



63; Persia: caravans and serais, 
101, 102*; Pilgrim Road to Mecca, 
43; Siam: elephants, 299; .Siberia: 
caravans, 147; post wagons, 146*, 
147-150; roads, 147; Suez Canal, 
42, 44. Syria: Circassian oxcart, 
68*; Sj-rian Desert: caravans, 70. 
See also under Railways. 

"Treaty Forts", 255-257. 

Tundras, 18, 20, 21, 22, 26, 27, 32, 
145, 146. 

Tungting, Lake of, 266. 

Tungus, 144. 

Turan, 295. 

Turfan, 166. 

Turkey, 3, 12, 13, 16, 28, 73, 85, 289, 
302, 307; government, 9, 10, 17-18; 
women of western, 82*. See also Ana- 
tolia, Armenia, Asia Minor, Meso- 
potamia, and Syria and Palestine. 

Turki race, 31. 

Turkistan, 147, 334. 

Turkistan, Chinese, or East, 33, 163, 
168, 169, 170. 

Turkistan, Russian, 30, 121-134; cli- 
mate, 121; flocks and herds, 128; 
fruit trees, 132, 133; irrigation, 129; 
locusts, 130-131; oases, 131; raids, 
129; rainfall, 121; religion, 121; silk, 
133 

Turkomans, 79, 83, 94, 127-130; 
tread making among, 140; drawing 
water from a well for their flocks, 
128*; soldiers saluting, 123*; tents 
pitched in the wind-swept desert, 
127*. 

Turnips, 243. 

Twin pagodas, 247*. 

Typhoons, 212. 

Tyre, 67. 

United Kingdom, 200, 339. 

United States, 25, 33, 134, 135, 137, 
144, 155, 157, 172, 195, 226, 250, 
257, 304, 305, 306, 314, 315, 317, 
318. 

Ural Mountains, 135, 138, 150. 

Urumia, Lake, 85; basin, 86. 

Vegetables, Anatolia, 81; Asia Minor, 
5. 8; China. 232, 243, 246; India. 
331; Palestine, 62; Persia, 99; Siberia, 
142; Southwestern Asia, 29. 

Vegetation, areas of natural, Asia, 
between pp. 134 and 135*. 

Verkhoyansk, 145. 

Vindhya Range, 315, 317. 

Vladivostok, 172. 

Volcanoes, in Armenia, 84; Asama- 
yama, 196*, 197*; in Japan, 216. 

Volga River, 96, 121. 

Vultures, 79. 

Wai, Hindu temple at the sanctuary 
of, 307*. 

Wales, 36. 

WaU, Great, 223-224. 224*. 236. 

Washington, 305. 

Waterfowl, 107. 

Watermelons, Armenia, 88; Asia 
Minor, 8; Persia, 109; Siberia, 145. 



XXVI 



ASIA: A GEOGRAPHY READER 



^t 



'-t 



Water pipe, 97. 

Weihaiwei, 253, 256. 

Western Ghats, 305, 314. 

Western Hemisphere, 172. 

Western World, 225, 283. 

West River, 280. 

West Virginia, 180. 

Wheat, America, 61; Anatolia, 79, 80* 
Armenia, 87; Asia Minor, 9, 10 
China, 232, 243; India, 313, 323 
331 f Mancliuria, 176, 179, 181 
Mesopotamia, 72; Northern Asia, 32 
Palestine, 55, 57, 61, 62; Siberia 
141-142, 143, 144, 147; Southern 
Asia, 35; Southwestern Asia, 29. 

Wheelbarrow, China, 14*, 241. 

Wilderness of the Scapegoat: a view 
near the Jordan River, 52*. 

Wolves, Anatolia, 81; Manchuria, 
178; Palestine, 61. 

Wool, 147. 

Writing, China, 222, 238-240; Chosen, 



222, 240; Japan, 222, 240; Siam, 

222; Turkey, 5. 
Yaks, 26; India, 319, 320; Tibet, 

23, 154. 
Yakuts, 135. 
Yakutsk, 145, 146. 
Yangtse-kiang, 12, 225, 226, 227, 

233, 248, 249, 256, 257, 265, 266, 

267, 269, 282; provinces of, 256- 

268. 
"Yankees of the East," 220. 
"YeUow Cat,*' 267. 
Yellow River, 235. See also Hwang-ho. 
Yellow Sea, 172, 184, 185, 236. 
Yenisei River, 32. 
Yezidis, 88. 
Yezo, 196, 207. 
Yokohama, 193. 194. 
Yunnan, 225, 233, 280, 284. 
Yuruks, 79. 
Zenobia, 70. 
Zulus, 24. 



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